


A Hole Straight up to the Sky

by Phoenix1966



Series: The Gaia Hypothesis [1]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alpha Jensen, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Anal Sex, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, BAMF Jensen, Bottom Jared, Captivity, Community: spnkink_meme, Dubious Consent, Dubious Science, Electrocution, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time Blow Jobs, Hurt Jared, Kidnapping, Knotting, Lactation, Language, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Medical Experimentation, Medical Torture, Minor Character Death, Mpreg, Mutual Masturbation, Nipple Play, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Omega Jared, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rimming, Suicide Attempt, Top Jensen, Violence, Wordcount: 50.000-100.000, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 07:40:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 62,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4129951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix1966/pseuds/Phoenix1966
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captured by scientists determined to save the human race from impending extinction, two weres - seemingly strangers - are caged together in the hopes that they'll mate. What happens between them is unprecedented and changes the course of both their races forever.</p><p>Taken from <a href="http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/86225.html?thread=32958417#t32958417"> this</a> prompt on spn kink meme. The prompt contains spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Standard disclaimer applies that this is all fiction, no profit is made and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> I do not give permission for anyone to repost my works anywhere. If this continues, I will delete all my work and no longer post.

The darkness was thicker than night.

Even without a moon, there was always some light to be found – stars, pollution, city lights, something. But not here. Here there was nothing. Jensen blinked and then blinked again. He barely resisted the urge to touch his eyes to verify that they were, in fact, actually open. He wasn’t sure what was happening. There was, after all, still a chance he might be sleeping. A chance all of this _nothing_ was a twisted dream. It didn’t feel real, Jensen was certain of that. He raised his head, strangely heavy, and took a long, deep breath to center himself, but it didn’t help. He couldn’t smell anything distinct. He heard nothing that could clue him in to his surroundings. His senses were dulled, muddied somehow and he felt like he was breathing through cotton. The parts of himself he relied on the most were failing him right now and that meant he couldn’t count on himself. That realization alone was almost enough to panic him when the _nothingness_ hadn’t. Even if whatever this was turned out to be anything but a dream, it was still twisting into a nightmare.

Propping himself up on his elbows, Jensen tried to make sense of the situation, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t come up with a single explanation for how he could be somewhere without a hint of light, no sound and absolutely no odors. It wasn’t natural. Process of elimination, he told himself, it was therefore unnatural. All right. Unnatural. That was a place to start. He levered himself into a sitting position. Rubbing his hands up and down his bare arms, Jensen shivered. He was cold where he was lying and debated if he should do something about it. Better to keep at least one ace in the hole for the time being until he got a better handle on the situation, he decided. Or any handle on it. At least he felt _something_. He took a small amount of solace in that.

He pushed himself up, touching the chilly floor – not dirt – underneath him. He dragged his callused hands along the surface.  It was polished like glass, whatever it was made of. Jensen cautiously raised his arms, testing to check where there might be barriers. He was able to lift them completely above his head. But to his left, he smacked into what he guessed was a wall, as slick as the floor. He hopped into a crouch, forcing stiff muscle to obey him, and slowly inched his way up to a standing position, his left hand gliding along the wall and his right held above his head protectively.

Soon enough, he drew himself up to his full height of 6’1” and still could not feel anything above him with his free hand. So wherever he was, he probably wouldn’t be able to jump out as he was, since he couldn’t gain any traction on the walls. They were too slippery for his hands. And now that he was standing, a little of his lethargy began to wear off. And with that absence, questions began to trickle in as did the first hints of anger.

Where was he? What could possibly be going on? Jensen tried hard to remember the last thing he had done and drew a big, fat blank.

He stopped moving for a moment and tried to take stock of himself. Jensen ran his hands over his body and felt soft material. He patted himself down from his torso to his legs, his movements still a bit stiff and unsure. His best guess was that he had on some kind of t-shirt and pants, but nothing else. The clothes didn’t feel like the kind he’d wear; they didn’t smell like him, either. Then again, they didn’t smell like anything. So what did it all mean?

The urge to move somewhere was thrumming in his veins, but he was hesitant to take his hand away from the wall to his left. It was the only thing grounding him. With the absolute black and his senses confused, he was afraid he might lose his balance and fall, swirling vertigo waiting in the wings to snatch him up. Jensen was pretty sure he was groggy but unhurt; he couldn’t risk injuring himself when there were so many unknowns right now. Though it was a bitter pill to swallow, playing it safe was currently the only option he could think of.

He closed his eyes and then opened them again. Still nothing. And as hard as he tried, Jensen couldn’t remember how he had come to arrive here. So, he told himself, the next thing to do was to go through what he did remember. Rubbing his forehead absently, Jensen tried his best.

He had just finished up a housing project that had taken nearly seven months to complete. That was the longest chunk of time Jensen had stayed put in almost five years. The crew had finished up the last touches the owners had requested, received their final pay and some of the guys had gone out for a few celebratory drinks. Although Jensen tended to be a bit of a loner, he had let himself get talked into joining them since it was the last time he’d see any of them. One of the crew, Mike Rosenbaum, had been particularly insistent about it, the more Jensen dwelled on the barely-there memory. Mike had harped on the fact that he “owed” Jensen for last month when Jensen basically kept a load of 2 X 4 beams from crushing the hapless man. But Mike could be a bit of comedian when the mood struck and was always up to something. Was this some kind of elaborate prank? Were the guys pulling one over on him? The more he thought about it, the more his blood began to boil and his heart started to race. If this was a gag, enough was enough. Time to put an end to it.

"Hello?"

Jensen strained to hear over the pounding of his own heart. Nothing. "Is someone out there?" Still nothing. It was only then that Jensen realized he had never said a word.

 

        

 

Mitch glanced from his notes to the computer screen, verifying his most recent update. When he was certain he had entered in the last of the day’s observations completely, he took off his glasses and set them on top of a stack of books along the left corner of his desk. He rubbed his eyes tiredly; between staring for hours at a screen and only fluorescent lights everywhere, his eyes were killing him. Not for the first time, he contemplated getting laser surgery. But, as always, the thought of something touching his eyes gave him the shudders. And he had been told he might still need reading glasses for his presbyopia, so he didn’t really see a point in pursuing it.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair, stretching his sore back muscles. Vertebrae clicked into place one at a time. Months of observation and research were starting to take their toll on the 54-year-old scientist. He glanced up at the clock mounted near the door, and debated about sneaking in an early morning jog to wake himself up after pulling another all-nighter. He was starting to feel like a prisoner, chained to his computer, and resented it, no matter how revolutionary the information he gathered was.

A ding drew his attention back to the screen. He absently groped for his glasses to check his emails more easily, but sat a little straighter when he saw who the sender was. Although he was fairly certain his office was not wired for sound or vision, he still checked over his shoulder before opening the missive.

**From: c.heyerdahl@fema.gov**

**To: m.pileggi@cdc.gov**

**Subject: RE: Project Crèche**

**Dr. Pileggi-**

**Attached please see the latest figures and current predications regarding birth rates.**

**I’m sure the numbers speak for themselves and I don’t need to impress upon you the need to see some substantial results in the near future. The means with which you obtain these results are of no consequence to the overall success of the project. Our office’s Mitigation Directorate covers a lot of ground, so to speak, so do not hesitate to use it to your full advantage.**

**As careful as we’ve been in keeping the general populace ignorant regarding the declining trend in viable childbirths, this is not going to last indefinitely.**

**I assume I will be reading your report in the near future.**

**C. Heyerdahl**

**Director, FEMA**

Mitch downloaded the attached spreadsheet to his personal folder, knowing the email would be deleted from the server within twelve hours after it was opened. He glanced over the document twice before closing it with a sigh. The numbers were undeniably growing worse. Heyerdahl was right in that it wouldn’t take much more for the general public to start figuring things out and the ensuing shitstorm that realization would herald would be epic. He found his eyes wandering to the framed photo he kept on the right side of his desk, the only personal item he had brought here on his arrival over five months ago.

Mitch smiled sadly as he traced his forefinger along the cheek of his daughter Julia. She stood with her arms wrapped around him, in a pristine, white dress and him in his tux, the photo taken just moments before he walked her down the aisle. She’d been married for little over two years before she eventually, with tears in her eyes, broached the subject of children with her father. She loathed having him call in any favors because of his position within the Center for Disease Control, but the two spontaneous miscarriages, when there’d been no history of anything like that in their family, finally drove her to seek out her father’s expertise.

One line of questions led to another avenue of investigation and before he knew it, Mitch found himself falling down the rabbit hole, seeing disturbing patterns and trends amongst women in the youngest, childbearing, age bracket. Julia was not alone. Staggering numbers of women from every walk of life were experiencing multiple, spontaneous miscarriages in recent years. And it didn’t take long before his research was flagged, having garnered the attention of certain people within FEMA. That particular branch of the Department of Homeland Security’s response was lightning quick. Before he even realized it, Mitch was transferred out of his research division within the CDC and found himself heading up an ultra-secret project, codenamed “Crèche”.

On his first day of assignment, he had basically been handed every scrap of knowledge that the U.S. government possessed on the Were population. Weres, only a few years “out of the closet”, had a multitude of physical attributes that intrigued researchers, not the least of which being their strength and rapid healing abilities. But what the Federal Emergency Management Agency was zeroed in on was their reproduction. Not only did female Weres reproduce, but certain males, known as omegas by their own kind, did as well. Documentation was scarce; literally, all they had to go on were some grainy surveillance photos of pregnant males and hard won word of mouth. The Were population kept mostly to themselves, living on reservations of their own making – pack lands. Some mingled or chose to live outright with humans, but most did so incognito. And none of the species agreed to any kind of medical studies, no matter how often government officials approached their Alpha leaders or how lucrative the enticements were. That didn’t mean that there hadn’t been any studies conducted, however.

Mitch knew his team wasn’t the only covert team studying Were physiology, but his was solely focused on male reproduction. The DHS figured that with the growing crisis of declining birthrates – the potential extinction of the human race – anything having to do with expanding the possibility of reproduction had to be studied in detail and exploited to the fullest. Their Mitigation Directorate justified a broad variety of actions and activities in the name of preventing disasters that hadn’t occurred yet. And that’s where Mitch now found himself, with one confirmed omega breeder in their custody and virtually free rein over how to proceed, as long as something useful to human reproduction came out of it in the end.

His team had been studying the omega for long enough that Mitch felt he knew the thing backwards and forwards, literally inside and out. It had turned out that some of the folklore was correct and silver actually affected the creature. Given its above average strength, they needed something besides drugs that might have affected its reproductive health to keep it docile. Granted, it had taken him and his team a few weeks to get the ideal silver ratio for the collar, but they hadn't lost the specimen _this_ time. It was close, though. But they nailed it down and it had recovered. Mostly. A good thing, too, considering how long it had taken them to bring in a living omega.

For the sake of the project, Mitch realized it had been both a blessing and a curse that they had caught it just at the end of its estrus cycle. On the positive side of the ledger, plenty of time to chart baseline stats, fine tune the collar and discover other incentives for training and control. Some of the people under Mitch had particularly enjoyed that aspect of the study. They were, after all, getting a little stir crazy from their forced confinement and he allowed a little leeway with protocols at times, for the sake of morale. On the downside was the wait to see if they could trap an alpha in time for the omega’s next cycle and have a successful mating. Everything hinged on that and it had driven Mitch to expand his search methods for an alpha into including civilians.

"We’re in business!" The unexpected shout snapped Mitch out of his thoughts and he looked up to see Mark skid into his open office doorway.

"Are you sure?" Mitch asked, but allowed a touch of excitement to creep into his voice, not even perturbed by Mark’s rude entrance, considering the news he suspected Mark was bringing him.

His assistant research partner, Mark Pellegrino, smirked and leaned against Mitch's doorway. Crossing his arms over his chest, he looked like the cat that got the cream. Licking his lips, he replied "One hand job and that mutt popped a knot so fast, it was one for the record books." He grinned at his boss, his icy, blue eyes twinkling. “Must have been a while since he got any.”

"Jesus, Mark, can we have a little professionalism? This is for research, you know," Mitch chastised him, but the corners of his lips turned up a bit and took the sting out of his words.

Mark pushed off from the doorway and straightened in a mock military-like fashion, brushing his blond hair away from his face. "The specimen we acquired yesterday from sector 17 has been given a thorough physical exam. To verify its status as alpha, a trained biological technician applied manual stimulation to its genital region and after a relatively short period of time, its bulbus glandis was unmistakably visible to the naked eye. Dr. Pileggi, sir!" And then he saluted.

Mitch couldn't contain himself. "Well, God damn, it's about time!" Finally, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

"Language, sir," Mark teased. "This is a research facility, after all."

Mitch rose from his desk and walked over to his slightly shorter assistant and offered his right hand. The two shook hands vigorously and Mitch clapped his left onto Mark's shoulder. "I almost can't believe we're here. Where is the alpha now?" he asked.

Mark nodded his agreement and replied, "We dropped him in the cell while he was still out. Figured that would be easiest on all of us, since it's still 'lights out' in there." He paused and looked at his watch. "Damn, it's almost dawn. Even after all these months, I still can't get used to no natural light, you know?"

"I know," Mitch answered and as though Mark's words were a trigger, he pushed his fingers up under his glasses and rubbed his eyes again. "But we're one step closer to all of us getting the hell out of here now. Well done," he congratulated the younger man. "‘Sunrise' is about to roll around, so how about you and I grab a coffee instead and head to the observation room and see what happens? Something tells me that’s going to be an eye opener."

"I thought you'd never ask," Mark quipped and flashed his boss an eager grin, his excitement evident in spades. "I can't wait to see those two go at it." He was practically rubbing his hands together.

Mitch laughed as he waved his hand over the light controls to his office, plunging the room into complete darkness. "You know," he said as they walked off together, "I don't think I've ever seen someone as 'dedicated' to a project as you've been."

"What can I say?" Mark shrugged innocently. "I just love my job. And you know what they say…if you love your job, you never have to work a day in your life." Mitch shook his head as the two of them walked down the austere hallway towards the observation room. They had a sunrise to watch.

 

 

 

Slowly, a faint light started to fill the chamber. Because there had been absolutely nothing before, the slightest change was like a fucking beacon to Jensen. But the more the light spread, the less Jensen understood. He could now make out a form huddled about five yards away from him. Jensen figured that had to be the source of the voice he had heard. Whoever the guy was, he was curled into a corner, but that didn't quite make sense. To Jensen's eyes, there wasn't anything directly behind him. He looked back at what his hand was resting against and it, too, looked like air. Then the realization dawned on him that it must be glass or Plexi-glass or some derivative. Bolder now that he was starting to get a handle on things, Jensen balled up his fist and gave the wall a hard hit. When nothing other than a dull thud sounded and his hand stung from the effort, he amended his first guess from glass to something a lot tougher.

"It won't do any good," the soft voice spoke.

Jensen whirled around and faced the stranger. "How do you know?" he demanded.

"Because I tried the same thing...for a long time," he replied. The man hadn't raised his head once. But, in the growing brightness, Jensen was able to see a little more of his companion. After a quick look at his own clothes, he confirmed that the stranger was wearing the same thing. The pale shirt and pants vaguely reminded Jensen of hospital wear. He was resting on some kind of mat, slightly larger and thicker than an average sized futon. Jensen couldn’t make out much about the other man. Whoever he was, he was balled up tight and had his head bowed over his knees. Long, chestnut-brown hair hung in clumps over his face, obscuring everything from view. Jensen slid back down to the floor and found himself mirroring the guy’s pose.

Looking past the man, Jensen took in more of his surroundings. The cage, and that was really the only way he could describe what he was in, was a square about twenty feet per side. All sides, including the floor, were transparent. Squinting, he could see small holes on the top of the enclosure, slightly smaller than his fist. Probably for air ventilation, he guessed. Off to his right, there was a sliding door that led to a small airlock type chamber about five or six feet long and then another door. They were both most likely locked, if he was going to believe his “cellmate”, but Jensen would test it anyway. In the corner diagonally opposite to him, he saw a stainless steel toilet. And as it became lighter, Jensen could see that the cage was situated in a larger room, with a variety of computer banks along two of the walls. The main room looked like it was constructed out of solid concrete and there were no windows whatsoever in sight. The only visible light source was a bank of bulbs set into the ceiling that were slowly powering on. So Jensen guessed he was more than likely underground.

The materials were stark and unadorned and that sort of explained why Jensen hadn’t gotten much of a sense of his surroundings when he first came to, but he should have smelled the other guy, especially given their close quarters, air holes or not. Jensen fixed his calculating gaze on the man and cleared his throat.

“Who are you?” he demanded, trying to sound like he was more in control of the situation than he actually was. At first, the other man didn’t say anything. Jensen was about to ask again – actually demand  a response – when  the stranger finally lifted his head and Jensen got his first, good look at his companion.

Whoever he was, he was barely a man, Jensen amended. The lean face belonged more to a teenager than an adult. He had high cheek bones and a pointed nose. Jensen couldn’t quite make out what color eyes the boy had since his hair fell over them and it seemed like the youth was actually trying to hide behind his haphazard bangs a bit. His dark hair was thick and long, curling under the boy’s ears, nothing like Jensen’s short, dark-blond locks. But it was what Jensen glimpsed below the boy’s cleft chin that caused his stomach to roil and clench painfully.

Jensen saw a polished, metal collar winking at him in the artificial “daylight”. And he knew, without a doubt, that the collar had to be made out of silver. It was the only thing that made any sense in this waking nightmare. Without conscious thought, he let his hand reach up to his own neck, already certain what he would feel there. And sure enough, his fingers brushed against metal on his skin. He splayed them over the collar and held his fingers still for a moment. The metal didn’t burn so much as it stung the longer he kept pressure against it. After about a minute, he had to pull his hand away, the pain having reached an uncomfortable level. It was like passing a finger through a candle flame. Done quickly enough, it didn’t feel like much. But linger and eventually flesh started to smolder.

He sat there, dumbfounded. The collar, loose enough that it didn’t directly come into contact with his entire neck at any given time, was still strong enough to affect him constantly. Its presence solved the mystery of why his senses were almost null and void. The damn thing was blocking them and Jensen guessed that shifting was out of the question. He still tried. He reached deep within himself to tap the core of his being, straining and clenching every muscle to no avail, because there was no familiar pop and twist of bone. No flesh refashioning itself. Letting out a frustrated scream, he slammed his fists back against the wall he was leaning on. When he finally fixed his eyes on the boy again, Jensen saw him nod sadly.

“It won’t work no matter how hard you try,” his cellmate said.

“Thanks for the fucking news flash,” Jensen snarled back at him and the youth shrank back even farther. Jensen had the wherewithal to feel a moment’s regret as he dragged his hand over his mouth. “Sorry,” he offered a minute later, when he’d gotten his frustration back under control. “This is a lot to take in, but it’s not like it’s your fault or anything.”

The boy dropped his head and Jensen almost didn’t catch what he said next. “Actually, it is. You’re an alpha, aren’t you?”

Jensen shot the kid a hard look. “How the fuck could you know that?” He gave him another appraising glance, but knew that the silver should have blocked his senses just as much as it did Jensen’s.

The boy slowly raised his head and gave him a sad smile. Jensen’s mind briefly flashed on what the kid would look like if he smiled for real. The boy scooted forward a bit and then twisted away from Jensen. With his long, slim fingers, he lifted the hair at the nape of his neck up and with his other hand he carefully pulled the silver collar down, exposing a strange, black mark on his skin. Jensen crawled closer to get a better look, since his own collar was clearly affecting his vision. When he was about a yard away, Jensen could make out the symbol on the boy’s neck: **Ω**.

Well, fuck.


	2. Chapter 2

“I’m guessing you didn’t pick out the ink yourself, huh?” Jensen asked when he had found his voice, not really sure what else to say. He only needed an imagination of a certain kind to figure out what was on the agenda. The kid knew he was an alpha, meaning whoever had them had told his cellmate the plan already and there was only one reason Jensen could come up with for an alpha and an omega to be tossed together in a locked room.

The boy didn’t say anything at first, simply sat frozen holding the same position. Jensen’s fingers still tingled from their brief contact with his own silver collar; he didn’t know how the kid could stand touching his that long. As Jensen was just about to say something, the boy finally lowered his hands and turned back to face him. If he was startled to see how much closer Jensen had moved, he didn’t say anything. All he did was give a brief jerk with his chin upwards and replied, “No, they did.”

Jensen turned, half expecting to finally see someone else, but the room was still empty. He let his gaze travel upwards and spotted what the youth must have been motioning to. Along the exterior corners of the cage were a series of what had to be surveillance cameras that Jensen missed in his first sweep of the room. He squinted up at them, barely suppressing a snarl.

“So whoever they are,” he snapped, “they want a show, I take it?” Jensen turned back to the boy as he nodded in agreement. Jensen ground his teeth.

“What else do they want?” he demanded.

The youth looked up and Jensen was able to finally see his eyes. Tilted, slightly exotic, they weren’t comprised of a single color that Jensen could nail down, but seemed to shift between blue and green, streaked with gold. Enigmatic, Jensen decided.

“Isn’t this enough?” the kid asked, with just the tiniest hint of defiance in his voice, uncurling his long arms to raise them out in a gesture encompassing the entirety of the cage. It was the first time Jensen heard impudence out of his cellmate and he found himself strangely pleased by it.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Jensen replied. He leaned against the wall, propped his forearms on bent legs and loosely clasped his hands. He looked at the boy and saw the youth held his stare this time. “What’s your name, kid?”

“It’s Jared,” he replied quietly. “What’s yours?”

“Jensen,” he answered. “How long have you been here?”

The kid – Jared, he corrected himself – gave him a nervous glance. “When did they get you?” he asked after a moment’s hesitation, not answering Jensen’s question.

Jensen inhaled thoughtfully. “Friday’s my best guess. Everything’s a little hazy.”

“Friday…” Jared repeated, although Jensen thought it sounded too much like another question. He sighed.

“Friday the 13th,” Jensen elaborated. When Jared didn’t reply, Jensen added in an exasperated tone, “Don’t go making some stupid joke about human superstitions, all right? There’s nothing funny about…” but he stopped when he noticed the boy curl tighter. “What?” he asked, tilting his head curiously.

Jared swallowed visibly. “What month?” he whispered.

Jensen paled at the question. “March,” he replied. Jared lowered his gaze and let his bangs fall over his eyes like curtains. “Been here about five months then,” the boy murmured before dropping his head onto his knees again.

Jensen took a moment to study Jared more closely. The kid was obviously pale, Jensen realized, and now he knew it wasn’t because of the lighting. It was still hard to judge his size, as he hadn’t uncurled completely since the lights had come up, but he looked thin. Omegas in general tended toward leaner builds, while alphas, at the other extreme, were by and large more muscular. And betas fell somewhere in the middle. But Jared appeared too skinny to Jensen. And as he was giving Jared the once-over, another thought crossed his mind.

“Have you been alone the whole time?” Jared didn’t lift his head or say a word. He simply nodded against his knees.

Jensen sucked in his upper lip and held it with his lower teeth as he turned away, shaking his head in disgust. _Five fucking months as a prisoner and completely isolated_. He couldn’t think of anything much worse than that for an omega to have to go through. Every Were knew that out of all of them, omegas were the most nurturing and tactile of their people. Without a second thought, even though Jared was basically a stranger to him, Jensen scooted over, careful not to startle the boy, and placed his hand on Jared’s forearm and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Jared gasped softly and whipped his head up. The expression he wore was a little difficult for Jensen to decipher. There was fear, naturally, and he even flinched initially at the touch. But he didn’t pull away and what looked like gratitude mixed with hope flitted across his face as well as something that Jensen couldn’t put a name to, but wanted to see more of. As Jensen slowly rubbed his hand up and down Jared’s forearm, he offered the boy a small smile. And his smile grew as Jared made a timid attempt to mimic it. _Good_ , Jensen thought. _That’s a start_.

Jensen kept up the soothing motion while he glanced around at their prison. If Jared had been there for five months, Jensen was certain he must have tried to escape at least once. While not as strong as alphas, omegas were not weaklings. All three classifications of Weres were stronger than humans, but Jensen knew one omega against a group of probably armed humans wouldn’t end in his favor. If there was a weak spot in the cell, Jensen was certain Jared would have tried to exploit it already. He’d check again himself, but Jensen was mentally already crossing a design flaw in their cage off his list as a possible means to escape. Their jailers, whoever they were, were next in line. And Jared had five miserable months of getting to know them to some degree. The boy would be his best source of information.

He turned his full attention back towards the omega, surprising himself when he noticed he hadn't stopped touching him. The contact was apparently grounding him as well, helping him to focus, but Jensen decided to dwell on that later. He kept smiling, seeing how it made Jared smile – small and sickly though it was – in return. Jensen was certain that Jared hadn't had anything to smile about in a very long time and he wouldn’t deny him some comfort. But he needed to get as much information as he could from the omega and Jensen knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. He’d have to get the boy to dredge up everything that had happened to him in vivid detail and Jensen was going to have to do it while under watchful, electronic eyes. He needed to tread very, very carefully. A twig snapping in this concrete and glass forest would give him away to his enemies.

He left his hand on the boy’s arm, but kept his touch light. Sliding closer, Jensen shifted so that his entire left side pressed up against Jared’s right. For a moment, Jensen held his breath. The contact between them caused something warm to blossom in the pit of his stomach. Jared’s eyes had widened as well and he shivered minutely. Jensen could feel the tiny tremors as if it was his own skin rippling. That was something new and unexpected. Jensen wasn’t sure what it meant. But before he could do or say anything, a rapping broke the spell.

Both he and Jared turned to the source of the sound. Jensen felt Jared grow stiff next to him. Jensen made sure to maintain their contact even as he fought to keep his breathing and heartbeat slow and regular. He made sure that some of his calm was bleeding through to the omega as he had intended, because Jared was still tense but held his head up high. _Good boy_ , Jensen thought. Neither of them moved an inch, simply faced the new visitors. Jensen wouldn’t dignify their arrival with anything more.

Apparently, the lights were turned up as high as they were going to go for the “day” and everything was clearly visible in the room. He hadn’t noticed the change in light or the fact that someone else was near until they made themselves known. Jensen bit back on the rage that wanted to bubble up at how much his senses were muted. Instead, he took a good, long look at the two men – humans, he corrected himself – who had been tapping on their prison wall. Both wore somber suits and ties, affecting an official air. Potentially some branch of the U.S. government or maybe representatives of some private corporation, Jensen surmised. It wasn’t unheard of for some Weres to go missing since they’d revealed themselves to the humans, although Jensen didn’t know of any cases firsthand. However, he knew his father was tracking that sort of activity very closely. For a second, Jensen felt the urge to laugh at the thought that he might have become one of those statistics his father had cautioned him about so often. _Maybe father does know best_ , he thought. Wasn’t that just a kick in the head?

The taller one was bald and wore glasses. _Weak eyes_ , Jensen noted. He didn’t look too old, but Jensen was able to make out quite a bit of gray in the human’s moustache and goatee. He was tall. Taller than his companion and probably a little taller than Jensen. Even with the suit, Jensen could tell the man kept himself fit. And he carried himself like one used to giving orders and being obeyed. The other was probably the human’s second. He was younger and slightly shorter, closer to Jensen’s height. Blond haired and blue-eyed. Jensen didn’t spot any obvious defects in him. He looked as fit, if not fitter, than his boss. Both men regarded them from behind the safety of the cage like he and Jared were nothing more than lab rats, which, he grimaced, they were. But while the older man was rather dispassionate about his appraisal, the blond one stared at Jared with his icy eyes almost like he was hungry. And even though Jensen was doing everything in his powers to rein himself in and give the humans no clue about himself willingly, he found a growl starting low in his throat the longer the younger man looked at the omega.

“Good to see you awake and settling in,” the older man said without preamble, unknowingly breaking the rising tension. His voice had a tinny sound to it and Jensen spotted a small intercom about chin height to the right of the airlock. Apparently it was sound activated because Jensen didn’t see anyone touch it. He simply stared at the man, refusing to speak. After a few moments, the man dropped his gaze and fiddled with his glasses before looking back up. _Good_ , Jensen thought. _He blinked first_.

“I’m glad to see the two of you are already getting along,” he finally continued and Jensen noticed he didn’t bother to introduce himself or his companion. “Compatibility. That’s good. That will make this go much easier on you.” He paused and watched Jensen, but Jensen remained silent. Let the human carry on as much as he wanted. Jensen wasn’t going to give him an inch. The man straightened imperceptibly, apparently recognizing Jensen’s silence for what it was.

“I’m certain your companion will be more than happy to fill you in on how things work around here.” And now his voice was colder. “But there are one or two things that really have to be experienced to appreciate.” And his blond companion smiled. Jensen felt Jared’s breathing pick up and it didn’t take a genius to figure out whatever the human was implying was going to be unpleasant. Jensen’s gaze never faltered, although he pressed against the younger Were, still offering tactile comfort. The bald man stepped closer to the glass, only a foot away now.

“I’ll get straight to the point since you don’t seem to appreciate pleasantries. You will do as we say if you ever want to see daylight again. You will breed that omega,” he ordered, pointing at the younger Were. “It shouldn’t be a hardship when it goes into heat. Just follow your instincts,” he smirked. “As soon as you do it successfully, we’ll let you go.” And at that empty promise, Jensen couldn’t help himself. He snorted in derision.

“I’m sure you want to be free. To see the sky above you and feel the ground beneath your…paws.” Jensen eyes flicked over to the blond man momentarily as he sniggered at his boss’s words before composing himself.  “You can have that after you’re done here.” He stood and waited for Jensen’s response, folding his arms across his chest. As the silence continued, Jensen saw the man grow aggravated.

“I’d like to point out that positive behavior will be rewarded and disobedience won’t be tolerated.” He slowly reached into the breast pocket of his dark jacket and withdrew a slim, rectangular device, not much bigger than a disposable lighter. “I’ve tried to be civil and you’ve been nothing but uncooperative. I know you can speak because we tested your vocal chords, amongst other parts of your anatomy, and they work as expected,” he hissed snidely. “So you can drop the strong, silent act.” Jensen didn’t even blink as he met the bald man’s stare evenly.

“Fine,” the man said finally. “I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that you’ve been collared. There’s just enough silver in them to make sure you stay…manageable. You can thank your companion for all the assistance he offered us in their testing phase. He was rather invaluable.” Jensen almost turned towards the omega, but caught himself at the last second. Although he didn’t really know the young Were, Jensen was certain that any “help” Jared had offered hadn’t been given willingly.

“Not only does the collar help contain you, it has electronics embedded in it to track your movements and vital statistics,” the bald man continued. “This,” he waggled the device in his hand, “is the only way to remove it. And, it does one other thing, too.” Jensen heard Jared gasp right before the bald man pressed something towards the bottom of the remote and Jensen’s world exploded.

He slammed back against the glass as every single muscled locked up. The pain that radiated from the collar was excruciating. It felt like the times he and a fellow alpha, Chris Kane, used to train and spar, when they didn’t pull their punches or hold back. What was almost worse was the fact that although Jensen couldn’t move an inch, feeling like his internal organs might implode, he was excruciatingly cognizant of every last detail. When the human finally released the button, Jensen dropped the rest of the way to the floor, completely boneless. He slumped onto his stomach in a half-crouch.

The boy scrambled over, running his hands up and down Jensen’s back and shoulders. Although the pain was intense and he could still feel some lingering muscle spasms, Jensen was able to move almost immediately. He propped himself up onto his forearms and glared at the human. “Is that the best you can do?” he rasped. He wasn’t sure if his bravado was for the human or the Were’s benefit.

The bald man smiled. “That was only five seconds,” he explained.

“I’m not that impressed,” Jensen quipped.

The bald man adjusted his stance and opened his mouth in a slow, wide smile. “You weren’t meant to be impressed. That was simply for a frame of reference.” Before Jensen had a chance to take that in, the bald man turned to his companion and nodded. At his signal, the blond pulled out a nearly identical device and thumbed it.

Behind him, Jensen heard the omega gasp and stiffen immediately. He turned and grabbed Jared to keep him from tumbling against the wall of their glass prison and cracking his skull open. Jensen’s lip curled in a snarl as he watched every tendon in the boy’s neck stand out in stark relief and his face and neck flush red under the strain. The omega was as rigid as a board. Jensen couldn’t do a thing to alleviate his suffering, so he simply held on as best he could.

“…6, 7, 8…” drifted through the red haze of rage that was enveloping the alpha. He vaguely realized the older man was counting.

“Mark,” the bald man said a moment later, “that’s enough.”

Jensen whipped his head up to face the blond man. Mark, as the bald human had referred to him, was oblivious to all of them. He moved, as if in a dream, closer to the glass barrier. He only had cold eyes for the omega and as Jared continued to suffer, Jensen watched Mark lick his lips. A low growl rumbled out of Jensen.

“Enough, Pellegrino,” the other human nearly shouted and that seemed to snap Mark out of his daze. He released the button and pocketed the device. The effects were instantaneous. Jared crumpled.

Jensen crouched down and pulled the omega’s limp body into his arms. He sat back against the wall and dragged Jared more fully onto his lap. The boy’s head lolled against his arm and his eyes, what Jensen could see of them as they peeked through his haphazard bangs, were unfocused. A thin line of spit leaked out of his mouth and trickled down his jaw. Jensen had lost count how many seconds he had endured the pain, but knew with awful certainty exactly how it had felt.

“Jesus, Mark, we’ve had this discussion before,” the bald human warned his companion. The implication of those words made Jensen shudder and he hugged the boy imperceptibly closer. His actions weren’t lost on Mark. His lips curled up into a smirk even as he addressed his boss.

“Sorry, Mitch,” he wheedled. “I just lost count. Heat of the moment and all.” And then he shrugged one shoulder. “We did want to make a point.”

His boss – Mitch, Jensen told himself silently – seemed mollified and turned back to Jensen. “I assume the demonstration was sufficient, alpha. Play along and do as we say, or,” and he gestured to the thin, slack body in his arms, “we can make your living conditions very unpleasant.” Jensen met his brown eyes unflinchingly and, once again, Mitch broke contact first. “We’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” he dismissed.

Jensen continued to stare the human down, all the while stroking the boy’s hair with the hand not cradling his shoulders. As the two men turned to leave, he heard the blond whisper to Mitch in a sing-song voice, “Aw, he already _likes_ him.”

Jensen used the bottom of his shirt to gently dab at Jared’s face all the while he seethed inside. He hated that fucking human for what he had done to the omega, for what he must have done to Jared in the past. And he hated him most of all because he was right.


	3. Chapter 3

 

“Why don’t we move you to the mat, huh? Bet that’ll be more comfortable,” Jensen cajoled the boy, rocking him slightly in his arms. His lids were still at half-mast and his multi-colored eyes were glassy. But he had stopped drooling. That was something, at least.

“’Kay,” he agreed and then proceeded to flail his limbs uselessly, looking for the entire world like a landed fish flopping on a riverbank. Jensen grabbed at his arms and held him still. Jensen realized that there was no way the omega would be able to help himself.

“New plan, kid. Let me do all the work,” he told Jared. Pulling the unresisting body closer, Jensen slipped an arm under the boy’s knees and curled the other more tightly around Jared’s thin shoulders. It was ridiculously easy to hoist the omega up, even though Jensen wasn’t completely recovered from his own taste of the collar’s bonus features. Jared’s head dropped back, his neck as weak as a newborn. That sight twisted something deep inside the alpha. He placed the boy gently on the mat, noting there were no pillows or blankets to make it more comfortable, merely the bare bones of a cushion. Jensen had noticed the temperature remained mild throughout the false "night", so he figured the humans were controlling every aspect of their environment and deemed bedding unnecessary. Jensen settled the boy on the mat, easing his limbs out straight, massaging the tense muscles along the way. With the silver muting everything around him, Jensen almost missed the omega’s whisper as he concentrated on the boy’s calves.

“Jared,” he sighed. “Please.”

Jensen looked over his shoulder at the boy and frowned, momentarily confused by what the omega was trying to say. He wondered if the kid’s thoughts were jumbled up from the abuse he had just suffered through. And then, it came to him. Words like “it” and “omega” were all that Mark and Mitch had used around him. Jared probably hadn't heard his name spoken aloud since before he’d been taken. And, to be honest, Jensen had been avoiding using it since he’d learned the kid’s name as a distancing mechanism. It wasn’t that Jensen didn’t care about him; he was simply afraid of caring too much. Worrying what their captors might do if they realized Jensen actually valued something in this prison. But, he guessed, that ship had probably already sailed.

Jensen scooted back up towards his head and gently brushed some of the boy’s chestnut bangs across his forehead and out of his pretty eyes. “Jared,” he smiled. He could do this. He could give Jared a modicum of his dignity back. And when he said the boy’s name, Jared’s face broke out into the first, real smile Jensen had seen and he was shocked to watch twin dimples appear like magic, cutting thin creases into the boy’s cheeks. The omega was beautiful.

His eyes fluttered shut as the tip of his pink tongue darted out and licked at his chapped lips weakly. Jensen turned his head, scanning the room for something to alleviate the boy’s obvious thirst. Squinting at the stainless steel toilet, Jensen saw that the cylindrical tank it was attached to had a small sink on the top, much like the setup found in human jail cells. He’d used one like it himself once, when he’d ended up in a drunk tank in Vegas after a bar brawl that was totally not his fault. A couple of human jackasses had been harassing a waitress and Jensen had taken offense on her behalf. By the time the cops had shown up, things had gotten a little out of hand and they’d hauled everyone in to sort things out. When the dust had finally settled, Jensen was once again a free man and found himself gainfully employed as a bouncer at the Double Down Saloon for a few months. He had enjoyed getting the chance to openly flex his muscles at the bar, where “You puke, you clean” signs were prominently displayed.

He didn’t see any kind of a container available, so he figured he’d cup his hands and let Jared drink that way. As he was rising, the omega stopped him with a shaky touch to his arm.

“Not potable,” he murmured and Jensen wondered how in the hell the boy had known what he was going to do when his eyes had remained closed. Brief memories about bonds and mates flitted through his head before he pushed that all aside. This hellhole was not a place for thoughts like that.

“Jared, how do you get water or food?” Jensen asked.

Before he could even begin to answer Jensen, a whooshing sound startled them both. Jensen watched as someone, clad head to toe in some type of red hazmat gear stepped through the now open first door of the airlock. Whoever was in there was carrying a tray laden down with a couple of plastic water bottles and a few plates. They squatted down and plucked the items off the tray as though offended, practically dropping them on the floor. When done, the suited person stood and exited the chamber. The door closed behind them with an audible hiss, before the inner one opened, allowing the Weres access to the food. The red suited individual stood by the door with their arms crossed, waiting.

“Speak of the devil,” Jared croaked and pushed up on his forearms.

But Jensen stopped him from moving any farther with a gentle touch to his chest. He patted the boy there once and fluidly rose to his feet. He padded slowly and deliberately over to the airlock, subtly trying to sniff the air. He barely caught a whiff of something warm, like oatmeal, but that was it. The collar had him well and truly fucked. Never once letting his eyes drop from the red mask not three feet away, Jensen crouched down and snatched the water bottles up. He frowned when he saw they were open, the caps missing. He glared at the person who had brought them. Try as he might, the front screen of the shapeless hood of the hazmat suit obscured whoever was inside. He hated not being able to look his enemy in the eye and see them looking back.

“It’s not Ebola,” he finally groused. “Not like you’re gonna catch anything,” he mocked.

Slowly, whoever was in the suit reached up and fiddled with the visor on the baggy hood. When he finally released the catch and flipped the visor up, Mark locked eyes with Jensen, frozen blue meeting verdant green. He was smirking.

“Oh,” Jensen sighed, glancing over the plated food. “Seems like you got our orders messed up. I asked for ‘Adam and Eve on a raft, wreck ‘em’,” he joked humorlessly. “This," he made a dismissive gesture to the food, "is clearly not it.”

Mark’s smile never wavered, but instead grew broader as he raised his left hand. Encased in a plastic sleeve was Jared’s remote. Jensen had to force himself to keep from turning in the boy’s direction. Mark’s message was loud and clear. Without another word, Jensen trapped both water bottles between his ribs and his forearm and picked up a plate with each hand. Walking back to the mat, Jensen heard Mark’s voice through the intercom.

“Ten minutes,” he warned.

Ignoring him, Jensen knelt down and Jared reached up to take the food. The disposable plates wobbled in his grip, but Jensen let him wrangle them to the floor next to the mat, understanding that the boy didn’t want to appear even weaker in front of his captor. He put down one of the bottles and handed the other to the grateful omega, who started cautiously sipping the cool liquid immediately. Jensen saw how his hand trembled from its slight weight, but he bit back on his urge to steady Jared’s hand.

He sniffed at his own water, but couldn’t smell anything at all. The dampening effect of the collar was total sensory deprivation for his heightened senses. He couldn’t hear, see or smell things normally. He found himself squinting as though everything was slightly out of focus. His hearing was worse. Always one of his strongest senses, Jensen felt the need to constantly clear his ears. It reminded him of the only flight he’d ever taken and what a clusterfuck that had been. The hum of the plane, what some humans thought of as white noise, had drowned everything else out and he thought he might’ve gone insane, trapped inside the metal compartment, squeezed next to all those people. He'd kept an iron grip on the armrests to stop himself from clawing at his own skin the entire flight. It hadn't even been a day and he was ready to start climbing the walls here. And as he watched the omega finish his drink, he couldn’t imagine how Jared had survived like this for so long. His suffering multiplied by the additional lack of wanted touch – Jensen tried not to imagine all the unwanted ones – and simple companionship. He wondered, in the back of his mind, if the boy might have even gone a little mad between the collar and the dehumanizing treatment. _Dehumanizing_ , he snorted. There was nothing remotely _human_ about any of this. Not even the humans.

Scooping up some of the tepid mush with one hand, Jared nudged Jensen’s leg with his shoulder. “Eat,” he whispered. “They’ll take everything away in seven minutes, whether we’re done or not.”

Jensen quirked an eyebrow at Jared. The boy had obviously been keeping time in his head. He tried to decipher if that was a sign of insanity or a coping technique. Or maybe, as he noticed how quickly Jared stuffed that awful gruel in his mouth, his timekeeping was a side effect of his “training”. Jensen looked down with a grimace at the oatmeal-like paste on the paper plate. Of course there were no utensils, not even one of those sporks that airlines seemed so fond of. Wouldn’t want to give the Weres a potential weapon, now would they? Animals could clearly eat with their hands or mouths. For a moment, Jensen debated about tossing the plate back at Mark. He could easily picture how the man would flinch as the goo struck the pristine glass of the door and oozed down its length. And it definitely would be satisfying, even for only a minute. But he took a longer look at Jared and quelled the impulse.

Omegas were almost always lithe creatures, more sinewy than muscular when male because their bodies produced less of a testosterone-like hormone than alphas did. But Jared was downright skinny and Jensen assumed they had been keeping him on a calorie restricted diet. Probably enough nutrition to survive, but nothing more. And Jensen knew well enough from human history that in their concentration camps, hunger and malnutrition kept the prisoners more docile and easier to control. He debated about giving his portion to the omega, but grudgingly tossed that option out. He had to consider their situation dispassionately, as hard as that was to do. Jensen was the stronger, healthier one and he couldn’t afford to weaken himself unnecessarily. He would have to be strong enough for both of them and do what he could to not lose too much muscle mass.

Grimacing, he dipped his fingers into the mush and brought it to his lips. Like the water, he couldn’t smell anything distinctive about the stuff and briefly thought that the collar, in this sole instance, was doing him a favor. The stuff tasted exactly liked it smelled – like nothing. He hunkered down and absently continued to eat, surreptitiously watching Mark out of the corner of his eye. The human simply stood where he was, staring at Jared the entire time. Jensen wanted to block the boy from his view, even though he knew the gesture would be pointless. They’d had Jared for five months. They’d seen everything. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to. Eventually, he felt another nudge against his leg and faced the boy.

“Only two minutes left,” Jared warned him with a meaningful glance towards Jensen’s mostly full water bottle. “Pretty sure you can guess how it’ll go if they have to come in for the plates and bottles themselves.”

Jensen nodded slightly and proceeded to finish off his water in a few, long pulls. He made to gather their dishes, but Jared stopped him this time with a simple stroke, slim fingers brushing against his wrist. Jensen closed his eyes briefly at the contact. Something tingled at the back of head, but before his mind could reach for the strange sensation, it was gone. The omega pushed himself to his knees and stacked their plates together. When he managed to stand up, clearly steadier now that he had some food and water in him, Jensen handed him the empty bottles. He walked slowly to the airlock, his pants canted at a crooked angle on his slim hips. Jensen was surprised they stayed up at all, given Jared’s build. He noticed that when the boy entered the airlock, Mark uncrossed his arms and moved right up against the door to scrutinize him closely. His body language and posture, even distorted by the suit, screamed intimidation. Jared carefully placed the empty containers on the tray and drew himself up to his full height and Jensen realized Jared was nearly as tall as him and probably still had some growing to do. He was uneasy to see that the boy stepped up to the door and he rose quickly to his feet to join the omega. But before he could reach him, Jared spat directly at Mark’s face. Jensen was struck between the similarity of Jared’s actions and what he had himself been contemplating doing as Mark flinched backwards.

Jared pivoted and shot Jensen a wry smirk, which Jensen slowly returned. But that smirk morphed almost immediately into a grimace of pain as the omega snapped upright, head thrown back. He was frozen in place. Jensen didn’t need to see Mark to know exactly what the human was doing. He ran up to Jared and grabbed him by his biceps, waiting for the inevitable. And he didn’t have to wait long. Two seconds later and Jared sagged into his arms, completely boneless, his forehead slumped against Jensen’s shoulder. But even as spent as he was, it was clear Jared was trying not to let his collar touch Jensen. The alpha was moved.

“You’re lucky it wasn’t longer,” Mark snapped as Jensen guided Jared out of the airlock and back towards the bare cushion.

Jensen wasn’t sure who was more surprised when Jared mumbled, “Gotta be careful not to damage the breeding bitch, Mark.” Even as he lowered Jared down, Jensen had to snicker. He could practically feel the waves of anger rolling off the human, despite the damn collar, when the inner door to the airlock closed and Mark re-entered from his side to clear their dishes away.

“Don’t bother looking for a tip,” Jared said in a rough tone as he raised his head and shoulders, apparently playing off of Jensen’s earlier restaurant jibe. “The service around here sucks.”

“Easy now,” Jensen murmured to him. “Pull in your horns,” he told the boy gently, secretly pleased to see that sudden spark of defiance, that life shining through.

“Not my first rodeo,” the boy drawled. He tried to keep the act up, but Jensen saw how much his moment of rebellion had cost him. He was sweaty and trembling minutely. With only the slightest prodding, Jared sank back fully onto the mat, completely horizontal. Jensen sat next to him on the floor, with his back against the glass wall. As much as he hated to do it, Jared’s quip reminded him that he needed to learn everything he could about the place. There was no better time than the present and Jared had opened the door. But he could ease the omega into it. Glancing at the streak of spittle drying on the far door, Jensen knew Jared could handle it.

“Is that so, cowboy? Where do you hail from?” Jensen asked, glancing once at the surveillance camera mounted in the corner closest to them. He had no idea how strong any microphone might be on it, or if the intercom piped their conversations back to some observation area to be recorded and dissected, and debated about placing a hand over his mouth to hide his lips, but decided to hold off doing that until they were talking about anything really important.

Jared rolled his head to face Jensen and replied, “San Antonio pack.”

“River City, huh? Do not tell me you’re a Spurs fan,” Jensen joked, hoping to see that rare smile again.

“Spurs for the win,” he bragged and struggled to sit up again. Jensen reached over and easily helped him get situated so that he, too, was now sitting upright against the wall with his knees propped in front of him. The alpha had to admit he liked looking the boy in the eye much better and nearly hummed in approval. “Mavs?” Jared wondered, casting him a sideways glance.

“Always,” Jensen stated firmly.

“Good luck with that. So where are you from?” Jared asked him.

Jensen took a deep breath and let his gaze travel up to the camera again. He mentally wondered how much he should say, not sure what, if anything, might be used against him or his kind. When he looked back at Jared, Jensen realized too much time must have passed since he’d asked the question. The omega had dropped his eyes and he was toying with a dangling thread on the hem of his right pant leg. All his bluster from a few minutes ago wiped away, leaving a timid shell behind. Jensen hated that and caught the wayward fingers in a firm grasp, squeezing carefully until the boy raised his head. He still hid behind his bangs, but Jensen could work with that.

“Richardson,” he informed Jared, adjusting his grip so that he could weave his fingers around Jared’s. The omega gasped quietly, but didn’t let go. Jensen tried to tell himself he was only doing it to soothe the boy, but he knew that wasn’t the only reason. The action soothed him as well and once more, memories of his mother telling him bedtime stories about bondmates trickled through his mind. Even if those thoughts were merely flights of fancy, he knew that they’d have to address the elephant in the room sooner or later. One step at a time, he warned himself. One step at a time.

“Dallas pack, huh? They’re pretty –” but before Jared finished his sentence, Jensen flicked his eyes towards the camera and back again and the omega seemed to pick up on his subtle signal. “They’re pretty cool,” he finished instead. Jensen squeezed his hand again reassuringly. No need to let the humans know exactly how large his pack was.

“Yeah, well, everyone thinks that about their pack, don’t they? I mean, you feel the same way about yours, right?” Jensen prodded.

“Yup, they’re the only thing I’ve known my whole life,” he agreed.

“Whole life, huh? Don’t reckon you’ve had all that much living under your belt yet,” Jensen pointed out and then immediately regretted his choice of words. If things didn’t drastically improve for them, neither he nor Jared would have much more living to look forward to. “I-I mean,” he stammered, trying to backpedal. But Jared gifted him with one of his rare smiles and gripped his hand back.

“I’ll have you know I’m probably at least eighteen years old,” he stated proudly and puffed up his thin chest.

Jensen realized that Jared’s weight, or lack thereof, had contributed to his thinking the omega was younger, although eighteen was young enough. Too young for this horror. He found himself trying to picture how Jared might look with an additional twenty or thirty pounds on him; how he might look if he were healthy. And then the omega’s word choice sunk in.

“Probably?” he cocked his head.


	4. Chapter 4

“Probably?” Jensen asked again.

He understood that Jared had lost track of time, to an extent, but Jensen had given him the current date, or close enough to it. He should know how old he was. Jared ducked his head, letting his bangs hide his eyes. While the nervous gesture was a little endearing, Jensen longed to look into them. If he was honest with himself, he found their changing colors almost ethereal.

“My pack,” Jared started and then corrected himself, “my _current_ pack found me when I was probably only a year old.”

Jensen took in the room, the various cameras and wondered how many ears were tuned in to them, wondered how much either of them should reveal to one another, but he decided he wanted to know more. And Jared had picked up on his earlier, silent cue to change the course of the conversation; Jensen figured he could do it again if the need arose. “What happened? I mean, how did they find you?”

“The way alpha Morgan tells it, I found them,” and Jared kind of chuckled. The tiny sound, so genuine and yet so out of place in their prison of glass and steel, caught Jensen by surprise. He couldn’t help but smile in response. “Apparently, one morning when Morgan and his mate, Momma Sam, got up, she heard some rustling in the pantry. Now, Momma Sam is deathly afraid of rats,” Jared explained and Jensen found himself chuckling at that. “I know, right?” Jared agreed, smirking at the absurdity of an apex predator afraid of an overgrown mouse.

“But she hates ‘em, hates the way they skitter around,” Jared slipped his hand free and wiggled his fingers to mimic scurrying rodents, “and most of all, she hates the way they taste. So,” the boy continued, “when she heard the noise, she asked alpha Morgan to go check it out, but he likes to mess with her. Told her since she claimed the kitchen was _her_ domain, and she only did that after he ‘almost set water on fire’,” Jared paused to hook his fingers to fashion quotation marks in the air and Jensen marveled at catching a glimpse of what must normally be a truly buoyant personality, “it was only right that she handle it. Apparently, she threatened to ‘handle’ him for being such a chickenshit, but grabbed herself a big, ol’ broom and used the handle to push the pantry door all the way open.

“Fully prepared to bludgeon the critter to death…well, more than likely to try and chase it out, Momma Sam found me instead.” Jared gave a self-deprecating, little shrug before continuing. “I was in my wolf form and supposedly mostly skin and bones. I’d torn open a few bags and sacks, spilled rice and dried lentils everywhere and managed to dust myself from head to tail in flour, before finding alpha Morgan’s secret Lucky Charms stash. Seems I bared my teeth at her, prepared to fight for the cereal regardless of how big my enemy was.”

Jensen found he missed the contact of Jared’s fingers, but couldn’t help smiling at the picture the boy painted of a scrawny, little pup ready to do battle for his Lucky Charms. He sobered up quickly enough, though, when he realized that Jared had been starving. “How’d you even get into their house?” he asked.

“Well, it was the middle of July,” Jared continued as he leaned his head back against the glass wall behind him, “and they’d been sleeping with only the screen doors closed because of how hot it got even up on the Edwards Plateau.” Jensen nodded, having visited part of the savannah-like area once with his father. He remembered mesquite trees and junipers, smelling like freshly sharpened pencils, limestone caves and lots of bats. And he remembered alpha Morgan. There was something else - a faint memory - scratching at the back of his head, but he couldn’t quite wrap his hands around it before Jared started to speak again. “Considering they found a ‘me-sized’ hole at the bottom of the back door, they figured I’d clawed my way inside and made a beeline straight for the food.

“Needless to say, Momma Sam did not chase me out with the broom,” Jared finished with another shrug.

Jensen had met beta Ferris on that visit and the dark-haired woman with the smoky voice had decidedly not introduced herself as “Momma” to him or his father. “I kinda guessed as much,” he grinned at the omega, “what with the ‘Momma’ and all.”

Jared grinned in return and knocked his shoulder against Jensen’s. The brief touch settled something inside of him and the alpha was surprised that he found himself craving more. “Well, you got that right,” Jared agreed. “She stood there and hollered for alpha Morgan and he eventually came to see the giant rat that had terrified his beta so much. To hear her tell it, he was even more surprised than she was to see me there, surrounded by bits and pieces of colored cereal. Not to mention, I kinda looked like Casper the friendly ghost, too.

“She told him to keep an eye on me as she went into the kitchen. Now,” Jared paused and pushed himself up a little straighter but let his knee knock against Jensen’s, “I don’t really remember much of this. I’ve only heard the story about a million times, so sometimes it _seems_ like memories,” he smirked, “but I do remember alpha Morgan squatting down and talking to me.” Jensen noticed that Jared was caught up in the recollection by the way his eyes were slightly unfocused. “I don’t know what he said to me exactly, but I felt the words inside,” and he paused to tap his chest near his heart. “By the time Momma Sam came back with a bowl of warm porridge, planning on using it to lure me out of the pantry without hurtin’ or scarin’ me, I was already curled up in alpha Morgan’s lap and half-asleep. Of course, he had a shit-eatin’ grin on his face and she whapped him upside the head with the back of her hand, but she was happy, too.”

Jensen realized he still had a faint smile on his face. He liked listening to the boy, hearing the familiar drawl and cadence of his speech. And there was no denying the sound alone was wonderful compared to the damp, blank nothing of their cell. At least it was something to focus on. But he had to be honest and admit it was mostly Jared himself. “So they fed you, cleaned you up and…” he eventually prodded the omega.

“They figured for me to reach the state I was in, by my condition and the absence of any other wolf scent on me, that I’d been on my own for a month or more,” Jared replied. “It took them almost another month to get me to shift on a regular basis and their best guess, once they got a good look at me with two legs, was that I was probably around a year old. I didn’t have the words yet to tell them what had happened.”

Jensen winced in sympathy, only having the vaguest idea of what Jared might have gone through, but so proud of how strong he had been, even as a pup, to survive; how strong he was now. He clasped Jared’s right hand and told him as much. “You’re incredible,” he murmured and watched, slightly mesmerized, as a blush, pinker than any sunrise, spread from the omega’s face down his throat, to disappear beneath his flimsy shirt. “Really,” he added earnestly when Jared dipped his head down.

The boy snuck a peek through his bangs at Jensen after a minute. “Really?” he whispered, twisting the material of his pant leg around a long finger.

“Really,” Jensen repeated, firmly and without hesitation. Jared turned more to face Jensen and raised his right shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. If not for their predicament, the gesture would have seemed practically coy, unconsciously flirtatious. Jensen believed Jared might have been trying to hide behind it and he couldn’t stand the thought. Jared shouldn’t hide from anything; not with him around. “Really,” he said a final time, letting a bit of his alpha heritage creep into the word, and reached over to brush the bangs from the boy’s eyes. He watched as Jared offered him a hesitant smile, but sat straight and tall as that tone washed over him. And Jensen felt himself sit taller in response, knowing the alpha in him could lend strength and reassurance to the omega and have it accepted; that he was accepted.

“What happened then?” he prompted the omega.

After a beat, Jared continued. “Alpha Morgan knew that no one from his pack had reported any lost pups.” Jensen nodded at that, knowing how valued all pups were. Unlike humans, wolves found it biologically impossible to abandon their offspring. That didn’t mean that parents didn’t find themselves in situations where raising a pup was impossible for them. In those instances, the parents would foster the young with one or more members of their pack and the children would grow up that way, still loved and nurtured. But pups weren’t dumped off on the side of a road like a human disposing one of their unwanted, canine pets.

“No one from a smaller, neighboring pack had heard of you?” Jensen wondered, even though he already knew the answer.

“No one had heard anything like that or even of any adults from a nearby pack that might have been hurt or…” and Jared took a long pause before finishing, “killed.” Jensen brushed his hand against Jared’s knee sympathetically. He was certain Jared’s parents were dead, and sensed that Jared believed it as well, but the loss was still there, still fresh. Seventeen years wasn’t all that long, after all, in the grand plan. And soon enough, Jensen was going to have to press for worse memories from the boy.

Taking a moment to collect himself – a moment Jensen gladly afforded him – Jared breathed deep. But the act didn’t center the omega all that much, considering there was nothing either of them could scent to calm themselves. Surreptitiously, Jensen slid closer, offering himself up. The gesture was not unappreciated; the alpha was certain.

“Momma Sam and alpha Morgan decided to foster me,” he eventually said. “Their children were grown and gone and Momma Sam was too old to have any more children. I mean, when they found me, she was already –” but he flinched when Jensen nudged him sharply in the side. Jensen hoped the jab was subtle enough that no one monitoring them would notice as Jared changed tack almost seamlessly, “– past her fertile years. I think they were happy enough to have me around. Momma Sam said it was a fitting placement, since I’d chosen them as much as they’d chosen me, after all. And I was pretty lucky, since I was only the fostered son of a pack alpha, not the heir. Much less responsibility,” he grinned.

Jensen nodded, although he didn’t acknowledge the remark about responsibility. _If only you knew_ , he thought, _how true that was_.

Jared didn’t seem to notice the alpha’s reticence to comment. He plowed ahead. “From an early age, I got interested in pack history. Probably because I couldn’t find out exactly where I came from, I became pretty obsessed about learning as much as I could about where we all came from.” The omega shot him a sideways glance, maybe to see if Jensen would ridicule him for being a recluse and a nerd. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Jensen’s education and pursuits had been more hands on. Some might have argued that they were more practical, but Jensen would have been the first to proclaim that a thorough knowledge of their history was just as valuable as knowing how to get a Chevy Big Block V8 purring again or how to hang drywall. But Jensen would be lying if he didn’t think the picture of a younger Jared, surrounded by leather-bound books and scrolls wasn’t a pleasing one. He could clearly envision the boy, knees drawn up to his chest, nestled in an overstuffed chair reverently turning the pages of some ancient tome that was so big, it needed its own stand to hold it up.

“Bookworm, huh?” he quipped and the omega saw it for the tease it was.

“Jerk,” he groused, but the smirk he wore gave him away. And Jensen found he had to painfully remind himself, in that instant, of the actual predicament they were in, because he was almost able to forget about it. It was if he and Jared were old friends, simply passing the afternoon together.

He was struck, once again, with how easy it was to talk to Jared. Of course, there always was a sense of ease in the company of omegas; they were the natural counterweights to alphas. Humans stupidly thought of Weres as having a vertical hierarchy, with alphas at the top and omegas at the “low end of the totem pole”, a horribly racist statement from their own history that humans now applied to Weres. Even some Native Americans didn’t contest the reference any longer, finally glad to have the negative connotation shifted to someone else despite the fact that totem poles were religious symbols. But for Weres, alphas and omegas were merely at opposite ends of a spectrum, much like light, that ran horizontally instead. A tree, composed of bark, leaves and roots could no more survive if one of those elements were to be stripped away than a pack could if one element of their society was missing or somehow less than the other parts. They were all valuable. Humans made the mistake of looking at the Were and only seeing a wolf, when, in fact, the Were was something more…something beyond wolf or human.

Jensen hated himself for the next question. “So, what happened?”

For a second, the boy cocked his head and looked confused until the ramification of Jensen’s question settled over him like a shroud. His expression grew shuttered. “You mean, how did a cloistered, spoiled kid get caught?” Although Jensen had known him for only a day, he hated how bitter the omega sounded and hated even more that he had been the catalyst for that bitterness. It made him nearly nauseous.

Jensen grabbed Jared’s hand, when the omega started to pull away, and squeezed hard. “That’s not what I meant at all,” he asserted. When the boy still refused to meet his gaze, Jensen insisted, “I thought you might want to talk about it. That’s all.” But it wasn’t all. Jensen did think Jared should talk about it, but Jensen wanted to learn everything he could about the way these humans operated. Something inside him clawed and rankled at the lie to the omega, so he added, “And it might help me to hear about it.” That admission got him the boy’s attention. They stared at each other for a long moment, silent communication almost a current between them. Jensen tried to pour his feelings into their skin-on-skin contact and it seemed like Jared understood. He nodded once, sharp and jerky.

“It was my heat,” he nearly whispered. Jensen knew the memory pained the boy, so he held his tongue, but offered tactile comfort as best he could. He scooted closer so that he pressed fully against the side of Jared’s body, a warm line of support.

“I knew my first heat was getting close. Momma Sam and I talked about my options and I chose to go into seclusion.”

“What?” Jensen exclaimed, his plan to keep quiet tossed aside. “Morgan’s not some old school conservative from the Dark Ages. Why the hell would he send you into seclusion?” And Jensen was growing livid. There were only a few packs that still held onto the “tradition” of sequestering omegas in heat to “spare” any alpha in the vicinity of suffering through the temptation an omega might present. The practice was outdated and prejudice in the eyes of most Weres. In fact, it was borderline illegal amongst their kind. Jensen felt his hackles start to rise at the thought of Jared being sent out to some remote location, to suffer through the throes of his heat alone and shunned. He was startled to feel the boy’s free hand rub against his forearm in a rhythmic fashion and even more surprised to realize that it was rapidly calming him down.

“Of course he’s not,” Jared assured him and then shot the alpha a puzzled look. “How would you know anyway?” he wondered.

“I like to keep up on pack politics,” was Jensen’s only excuse. He flicked his gaze towards a camera briefly and hoped Jared would let it go. The omega understood the signal, although Jensen could see curiosity blaze bright in those hazel eyes of his. And Jensen was starting to see the boy would do a lot to sate his inquisitiveness. Still, Jared held his tongue in that respect. _Good boy_ , Jensen thought once more.

“Momma Sam understood I wasn’t interested in any of the local betas or alphas,” he explained to Jensen. “And I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable with my scent since I knew I didn’t want them.” After a long pause, Jared added, “I felt like I’d be leading someone on by staying in the heart of the pack lands when I didn’t have to. I knew there were a few others who were actively seeking mates who’d be in heat as well, so I thought it would be best to remove myself and not add to anyone’s confusion or send some kind of wrong signal. Does that make sense?” And the worried look the omega wore tugged at Jensen’s heart. He nodded his head reassuringly, strangely pleased the boy hadn't wanted anyone there to claim him, as though he were waiting for someone else to come.

“Momma Sam and alpha Morgan had a small cabin on the outskirts of the territory. It was basic, but well-provisioned. In fact, it was kind of their ‘love nest’,” and Jared blushed furiously at the admission. “A place they could go to get away from pack duties when they got the rare chance. So it was going to be perfect for me. Momma Sam wanted to go with me, but I didn’t want her to see me when I went through that. I just couldn’t, even if she was family, so I convinced her I’d be fine on my own since I was all grown up and everything.” Jared stopped and lowered his head. “I’m glad, though, that she didn’t come with me in the end. Who knows what they might have done to her if they had got us both?” Jensen was barely able to hear the last part. Still, he had a pretty good idea what the humans might have done to an unwanted beta and it wasn’t anything good.

“You _saved_ her,” he told the boy earnestly, ducking his head to catch Jared’s gaze. “You did,” he nodded strongly and thought the boy took some comfort in hearing someone else tell him what he suspected to be true. Maybe the thought he’d saved his mother had been his only succor in this hellhole from the beginning.

“Everything was going like it should have…I mean, you know,” he stammered and Jensen found the omega’s verbal floundering sweet despite their circumstances. He was still so innocent. The boy took a deep breath and carried on. “It was the last day when everything went to shit. My heat was close enough to the end that I decided to head home. I figured if I took my time, I’d be completely finished by the time I got back. I hadn’t gotten more than a mile or two from the cabin when I heard…them.” And Jared shivered. Without a second thought, Jensen released the omega’s hand and threw his arm around Jared’s shoulders instead. The boy didn’t even hesitate to lean into Jensen’s embrace.

“At first, I figured maybe they were hikers or something. It wasn’t unheard of for humans to camp around that region of the Plateau or go spelunking, so I didn’t think much about it. I just stuck to the trees and tried to not draw attention to myself.

“Well,” he sighed, “my senses must have still been hazy at the end of my heat, because before I knew it, there were two humans obviously on my trail. I must have panicked,” Jared admitted and he seemed ashamed, shrinking into himself, "and got sloppy."

“S’okay, sweetheart,” Jensen reassured him, the endearment catching them both unaware. Neither knew what to make of that.

“I was so stupid. I practically ran right into them,” Jared hissed and Jensen understood. The boy had had five months to revisit the memory again and again and there’s no way he could have seen his actions as anything other than wanting.

“You couldn’t have known, Jared,” Jensen continued to reassure him, rubbing his hand up and down the boy’s left shoulder.

“There was a group of five of them,” Jared said, trying to keep his voice steady. “They were dressed in military camo gear. That’s what tipped me off. When two of them pulled out rifles, I turned tail and ran. But before I got very far, I felt something hit my flank. I wasn’t able to do more that stagger a few steps before I fell. As I lay panting in the grass, I couldn’t hold onto my wolf form any longer. Whatever they shot me with made me lose control of all my muscles. The last thing I remember before I passed out is shifting back to this form and one of the soldiers spreading my legs with the end of his rifle.” Jared was practically vibrating with shame and humiliation.

Before Jensen could do or say anything to comfort the boy, there was a thump by the airlock. Both the Weres turned as one to see someone, again encased from head to toe in hazmat gear, standing inside the airlock.

“What the hell do they want now?” Jensen growled.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there is non-con via object insertion in this chapter.

“It’s the afternoon feeding,” Jared explained in a hushed voice and leaned forward, ready to push himself to his feet. But Jensen stopped him with a single touch to his chest.

“Stay,” he told Jared. “Please.” Jared nodded.

Jensen sprung to his feet in a single movement and ambled over to the airlock, loose-limbed and at ease. That was merely a show for the omega. Inside, he was seething as he pictured faceless humans violating a defenseless Jared, guns and hands prodding and touching what they had no right to. He felt the alpha within him snarl and claw at the silver prison he was trapped within. But he was also painfully aware that anything he might attempt now would only result in Jared paying the price. Jensen knew he had to bide his time, but the wolf within him wanted retribution. The wolf demanded to be fed. The wolf wanted red.

As soon as the human in the protective gear exited the chamber, the inner door whooshed open. Jensen could barely hear the sound, as though his ears were packed with cotton. On the floor were two opened bottles of water again and what looked like a pair of protein bars missing their wrappers. And that was all. Jensen clutched the bottles to his side same as before and scooped up the two bars with his free hand. Whoever was in the suit simply stood and watched, but didn’t remove their hood or say anything.

 _Probably not Mark_ , Jensen thought, _because he’d have revealed himself by now. He’d be gloating, with his frozen eyes and icy smile._

“I don’t know why we keep eating here, Jay,” Jensen tossed over his shoulder, unaware of the nickname he’d unconsciously used with easy familiarity, “because they keep getting our orders wrong.” The weak smile he got in return was worth the lame joke.

“Ten minutes” a voice deeper than either Mark or Mitch’s filtered through the intercom.

Jensen had to swallow down his inclination to shout “Or what?” at the man, because he knew exactly what would happen and the alpha would be damned before he saw Jared hurt again. He simply strode back to Jared and sat down, handing over the omega’s share of the food to him.

“This is it for the night,” Jared murmured without preamble as he started to chew on the unidentifiable bar.

“Seriously?” Jensen replied before he caught himself. Clearly, this was it. Merely enough food to keep them going, but not enough to really maintain muscle mass or a healthy body weight. Keep them alive. Keep them to breed. But keep them docile. Keep them weak.

“Mmm hmm,” Jared mumbled around the bar as he tipped up the water bottle to wash it down. Jensen watched as the omega’s Adam’s apple bobbed and moved with each swallow and he felt something stirring in his stomach and it wasn’t hunger. Or, at least, it wasn’t hunger for food. To distract himself from his thoughts, Jensen tore a bite off of the bar. Whatever it was made of, the “food” was as bland and as appetizing as cardboard. But, as with the earlier meal, he forced himself to eat every last crumb and washed the flavorless stuff down with his water.

“Four minutes left,” the boy reminded Jensen quietly and he ached inside because of the relentless way Jared kept time. That was all on the humans, forcing the omega to conform to their schedule and bend to their rule. Somehow, he vowed to himself, the humans would pay for all of it.

He nodded at Jared and offered a smile. “Thanks,” he said and watched as Jared ducked his head briefly, almost shyly, before gathering their empty bottles and rising carefully.

“Don’t,” Jensen warned him. “Not for me,” he added gently when Jared cocked his head at the first command. But Jensen didn’t want a repeat of what had happened earlier. He didn’t need the omega to make some bold gesture to prove how brave he was; Jensen already knew. He hoped he conveyed as much with his glance.

“Yes, alpha,” Jared answered immediately and they were both surprised by the omega’s automatic use of the honorific. Jensen couldn’t deny it pleased him on some basic level; warmed him, even. And that had never happened before. Jensen always hated the acknowledgment of his lineage because that identification usually came on the heels of who his father was. This was the first instance in years that Jensen could think of where another Were simply recognized him for _who_ he was; _saw_ him for who he was. Without realizing it, the alpha puffed out his chest slightly.

Jared’s pupils dilated imperceptibly and he hurried to return the containers to the airlock. Without fanfare, the omega placed the plastic bottles on the floor and returned to Jensen’s side. He nestled in against him and the alpha slipped his arm back around the boy’s bony shoulders. They both watched as the human removed the bottles and left the room. Although they were both painfully aware of the surveillance and the lack of any true privacy, neither spoke until the human was out of sight.

Lightly rubbing his hand up and down Jared’s left shoulder, Jensen quietly asked, “So that’s it? Twice a day?” Internally, he was trying to track how often that airlock was open. That would probably be their best time to get out.

“Yes,” Jared answered slowly, “and they’ll take the light away in less than three hours.”

Jensen nodded, although he couldn’t help but grow angry at Jared’s timekeeping. Not that he did it, but that he had to do it at all. Months of nothing but literally counting every second he was trapped here. Jensen couldn’t bring himself to ask if Jared had been hoping for rescue. If he started each day thinking to himself, “This is the one when I’ll be free. All I have to do it count to one hundred and it will be over,” like a child outwaiting a storm that never ended.

“So they don’t open the doors other than for food?” he prodded the boy. He felt the omega tremble under his arm and wished he didn’t need to press. “What else do they do?” His voice was low and deadly. The alpha had to strain to hear what Jared said next.

“No, they come in every two weeks,” he rasped.

“Why?”

“To take me to another room where they…examine me.” Jensen’s grip tightened.

“How does it go?” he muttered.

Jared breathed in harshly through his nose and Jensen felt his body shiver. “You’ve seen how the collar works,” he finally choked out. Jensen only nodded, finding no words of comfort to offer. “It’s always Mark. Sometimes Mitch is with him, but lately not often. And always two others with silver chains and a gurney.”

 _Two with chains, two outside with guns. So two here are muscle and probably not much more_ , Jensen reasoned.

“Sometimes I fight, sometimes I’m too tired,” Jared admitted. “They wheel me to the room I first remembered waking up in.” And he fell silent.

Jensen wasn’t sure if knowing all the details about Jared’s capture would help them now, but, judging by the way the boy was shaking, he did believe Jared should talk about it.

“Do you want to tell me? Will it help?” The only sound in the room was the omega’s harsh breathing. After several tense moments, Jensen began to wonder if he was ever going to continue. And Jensen wasn’t sure if he’d ever be ready to hear what Jared might reveal.

“Yes,” Jared swallowed, tilting his head slightly away from the alpha. Jensen wanted to protest the movement, but understood what would come next was sure to be painful and if Jared needed some distance, however small, to center himself, he wouldn’t deny the boy that.

“I don’t know what they might have done to me out on the Plateau; I don’t remember much after they shot me or how they got me here. The next thing I do remember was waking up inside a very white room.” Jared’s voice was low and tremulous. “When I looked around, everything sort of shimmered. It was like trying to see through heat waves dancing above asphalt in the summer. Things wavered in and out of focus. I guess I was still drugged up at the time.” And he paused for a few seconds. “There were four or five people around me, all dressed in some kind of quarantine gear, but more form fitting than what you’ve seen. I don’t know,” he huffed, “maybe that was so they could move around easier and…manipulate stuff. I tried to get up, but I was strapped down on a table.” Jared took another moment and the alpha stayed silent.

Jensen let his eyes drift around the room. He vaguely took in the banks of computers along one wall and let his mind idle over their function. There was still the low-level anger burning like a stoked fire inside of him over the way his senses had been crippled. He _should_ be able to hear their fans working, the subtle hum of the electrical current, but there was nothing. Only the absence of sound remained. Did they control their cage and environment? Did they house all the digital surveillance the humans were collecting on Jared and now Jensen? The few lights that flickered on the panels seemed to mock and wink at him. What, he wondered, would it sound like if he ran Mark’s head through one of the panels? Whatever the sound of bone crunching and metal tearing would be, he was certain it would be satisfying. He rubbed his hand briskly along Jared’s bicep.

“Now they don’t need to strap me down any longer,” Jared explained guiltily. Jensen tried to catch his eye, but the boy was still partially turned away. Jensen wanted Jared to know it was okay that he didn’t constantly fight the humans; that Jensen didn’t view it as a sign of weakness after five months of captivity and torture, but the omega resumed talking before he could speak. “They modified the table so that it has silver embedded in it. As soon as they get me on it, I can’t move a muscle. But back then,” he continued softly, “I was tied down.

“The first thing I heard was Mitch saying ‘That only means he’s not an alpha’ or-or s-something like that,” Jared stammered. Jensen was pretty sure he knew what they had done to the boy since he had vague recollections of how they’d determined his status as an alpha. “And then Mark told him that they’d know for certain after he ‘stimulated’ me from the inside.” Jensen heard the underlying shame Jared felt in that declaration. “M-my legs were manipulated into these stirrup things and s-spread wide open. Everyone could see me,” he rasped. “Mark shoved a speculum inside me…down there,” he breathed. “It was cold and hard and when he turned something on it, it hurt so much. I thought I was being torn apart. I-I never had anything…” but Jared couldn’t finish. He didn’t need to; the implications were clear. Jared had been untouched – a virgin in every sense of the word – until humans had stolen him. Jensen’s mouth twitched, his upper lip forming a scowl before he regained control of his features and smoothed them over. He needed to stay calm for the omega and be the rock he knew the boy needed to continue.

 “And once he opened me up, he took this long, thin probe and shoved that in as well. Someone argued that they should increase my sedation, since that was the ‘normal protocol for electro-ejaculation’.” Jensen suspected Jared was using the medical jargon as a way to distance himself from the violations. “But Mark just laughed. He told them if vets didn’t do it for breeding cattle, why should they do it for me?” And a sick smile appeared on his face. Jensen wanted nothing more than to wipe that away. A look like that had no business ever being on Jared’s face. He squeezed the boy’s shoulder harder.

“He turned something on and whatever that probe was sort of shocked me inside. I squirmed and fought, but he kept touching this one place inside me and I couldn’t get away from it. I-I don’t understand why it happened,” Jared croaked, “but I got hard.”

“S’not your fault, Jared,” Jensen whispered to the boy. “You can’t fight your body. No one can.”

Turning into the alpha’s shoulder, Jared hissed, “I got wet.” And he infused such self-hatred into that admission that Jensen had to fist his scrub pants with his right hand to keep from punching the floor. Even still, he heard material rip. “I couldn’t stop it. Mark kept jolting me and the others started to clap and holler. Mitch finally told Mark that it was enough and to clean me up, tag me and collar me.

“The last thing I remember was Mark snapping the collar on. It burned worse than what they put inside of me and I passed out right away. Back then, they didn’t have the silver ratio quite worked out. But, lucky me, they managed to figure out just how much to poison me without actually killing me in the process,” Jared grated bitterly.

For a long time, neither spoke. Jensen kept a firm grip on the boy when Jared tried to pull away. “My collar,” he mumbled when he started to twist around.

“S’fine, Jared. It’s not touching me,” Jensen lied. Jared’s collar burned like a brand where it pressed against the alpha’s collarbone, but he’d be damned if he’d let Jared know that. The omega needed and, more importantly, deserved whatever relief he could get from Jensen. And the alpha was glad to offer it.

“Liar,” Jared sniffled, but remained where he was, with only a little adjustment so his collar wasn’t touching Jensen quite so much.

“Hey now, is that any way to speak to your elders?” Jensen quipped, pulling his head back to watch the top of Jared’s head. Secretly, he was hopeful that Jared could still somehow retain his sense of self after so much had been stripped away. The only response he got was a wet chuckle. He’d take it.

“Is it always like that when they take you?” Jensen finally asked him. Jared remained silent, but eventually Jensen felt his head move up and down against his chest. Jensen’s arm slipped down from the boy’s shoulder to his bicep and he tugged Jared closer to his side.

“Tell me something.” Jared’s muffled request eventually broke through the heavy silence.

“Like what?” Jensen replied curiously.

“Something that isn’t this place. Something real,” the omega begged softly.

For a moment, Jensen didn’t know what to say. His thoughts were swirling around humans and retribution and his father having been right in the end. But he was sure Jared didn’t want to hear how the High Alpha of North America hadn’t trusted a single human in over seventeen years and, apparently, his distrust and hatred hadn't been misplaced after all.

Instead, Jensen found himself telling the boy stories from his travels. There were plenty of outrageous encounters when he worked as a bouncer at that ratty bar with the great signs. The stint he did as a short order cook in Pasadena was also good for a few laughs at the humans’ expense. Occasionally, he’d feel Jared smile against his body. And Jensen found himself escaping just a little bit as well when he shared his memories of better times with the boy. He explained how hot it got in Eastern Washington when he’d been working one of the many vineyards in the region. Hotter even than Texas at times, he’d told Jared. And how much parts of that area reminded him of Texas, with its scrub brush and tumbleweeds and open skies. How it made him a little homesick.

“But the minute you’re over the summit at Snoqualmie Pass,” he explained, “you’re up so high in these huge mountains and the air is so clear and fresh and everything turns green and sharp, like you’d stepped into a different world. Trees so tall it’s like they touch the sky,” he told Jared quietly.

Jared had started to shift around and finally said, “It’ll be dark soon.” Damned timekeeping. His voice sounded stronger than before. Jensen hoped it was because of him. But he didn’t say anything more.

The omega freed himself from Jensen’s hold and Jensen was reluctant to let go. The omega shifted around on the mat until he was fully stretched out. But even though he was facing Jensen, he still hadn’t looked him in the eye since his earlier confessions. Jensen was loath to make him feel worse, so he took his cue from the boy and started to make himself comfortable on the floor beside the mat. But before he could stretch out himself, Jared patted the space next to him on the mat in silent invitation.

“Are you sure?”

There was only a nod in response. Jensen wasted no time rolling over onto the mat, facing Jared. He wanted so very badly to hold the boy, cameras be damned, after all that they’d shared today. But he wouldn’t force himself. Not ever. He watched as the fingers of Jared’s left hand rubbed up and down the mat and Jensen didn’t know if the omega was trying to soothe himself with touch or even if Jared noticed what he was doing at all. Taking a chance, Jensen placed his hand over the boy’s. The motion stopped.

“It’ll be dark soon,” he repeated.

Even Jensen noticed the dimming lights.

“They’re taking the light away,” Jared murmured. The alpha decided to take another chance and he opened his arms. Jared moved in closer to the obvious offer of comfort. “They’ve taken everything from me. My freedom, my family, my virginity, my dignity…even my wolf. They’ve taken the sky and the earth from me. I didn’t think that they could take any more from me, but…” and he drew in a shaky breath, meeting Jensen’s eyes for the first time since he had told the alpha exactly what the humans had done to him, “I never dreamed they’d ever give me something back.”

Jensen met his look, but was at a loss for words once more. The boy’s strength and courage was almost overwhelming.

“Your eyes are the first bit of green I’ve seen since they took me,” the omega explained and placed a hesitant hand against Jensen’s face. “And it’s like being home again. I want that to be the last thing I see before they take everything else away…”

The light was completely gone. Blackness swallowed them up.

Jensen used the illusion of privacy to clasp the boy closer. He nuzzled along Jared’s jaw and slowly dragged his stubbled chin near the omega’s ear, “I promise they’ll be the first thing you see every morning and the last thing you see every night.”

And whether it was the counterfeit solitude, or the memories of degradations Jared was forced to relive, or maybe a combination of them both, Jared began to cry. The soft, bitter whimpers and shudders tore at the alpha’s heart. He didn’t offer platitudes or false promises of hope. Deep down, he knew this was probably the first time the boy had shed any tears during his imprisonment and he was trusting the alpha with his hurt and shame, baring himself completely. Jensen offered Jared the safe haven of his arms to protect him as best that he could. He offered his silent understanding and unspoken support. And maybe his heart as well.

Mitch wearily entered the observation room. He was still buttoning up his shirt, but had forgone the tie. After all, seeing as though it was the graveyard shift, there was only the single team member who had paged him currently on duty. No need for formalities at the late hour. He readjusted his glasses and leaned over Jackson’s shoulder to get a better view of his monitor.

“What exactly did you notice?” he asked the younger man.

“At approximately 23:00 hours, I registered the first real fluctuation in body temperature the omega’s displayed since he was placed within the habitat, sir,” Jackson reported to his superior.

“No chance of it being because of his physical proximity to the other subject? And did you run a thorough diagnostic on all the thermal sensors, son?” Mitch prodded him, although he suspected his underling already had.

The brown-eyed junior assistant nodded his head vigorously. “That was the first thing I did. Twice,” he smiled. “They show no sign of malfunction and are calibrated properly. And when it was ‘lights out’, his temperature held steady for over an hour even though the alpha was all over him.”

Mitch took a closer look at the screen, a smile growing on his face as he clearly saw the warmer yellow and orange heat signature of the omega compared to the alpha. Five fucking months and the show was finally on the road.

“Does this mean…” Jackson wondered, voice trailing off in uncertainty.

“They don’t call it ‘heat’ for nothin’, kid.” And Mitch grinned from ear to ear.

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

Jensen dreamt.

_“Time for bed, little one.”_

_“But, Mommy, can’t I stay up a few minutes more?” Jensen asked in what he hoped was his best “I’m a good boy” voice. He’d only just gotten his wooden soldiers placed in a tricky flanking position that he knew Chris wouldn’t be able to escape from when he came over to see them tomorrow._

_“Not a chance,” his mother laughed and scooped him up off the floor to settle him against her hip. “Time for all children to be in bed.”_

_“But, Mommy –”_

_“I won’t move them. They’ll be right there come tomorrow morning. I won’t touch a thing,” she promised Jensen and he wondered for the millionth time how she did that. It was exactly like the time when she knew he’d taken that extra cookie when he was sure no one was looking. He was pretty certain his mommy had superpowers. That was the only explanation that made sense._

_She dropped him down on his bed and he bounced up once and couldn’t help but giggle. Then she dropped down next to him even harder and he bounced up again because of it, giggling even more. “Now, what would you like for your story tonight?” she asked like she did every night and ruffled his super-straight, blond hair while she settled against the headboard of his toddler bed. She opened her arms and he crawled over onto her lap immediately._

_Jensen thought hard. Now might be a really good time to ask for something instead of a story. He and Chris had gotten into a fight today when Chris said that it looked like his mommy cut his hair using a bowl. Jensen had called him a stinky liar and the two had wrestled in the dirt until their mommies pulled them apart. Jensen had maybe felt a little bad, because, just maybe, his Mommy_ did _cut his hair with a bowl but only to make sure it was nice and even. But they didn’t get into any real trouble. Both their daddies had laughed and said “Alphas will be alphas”, whatever that meant. And that was the end of it. He thought it was the perfect time to ask for a really short cut, like his daddy had. All straight up and spiky. It would look really cool. But when he opened his mouth, something completely different came out instead._

_“What’s a bondmate, Mommy?”_

_“Now where did you hear that?” she wondered, but she didn’t say it the same way like she did when he’d said a bad word last week. And that was all Chris’ fault anyway, but he didn’t tattle on him even when it might have meant less spankings. He’d never do that to his best friend._

_Jensen shrugged his shoulders and grabbed one of his Mommy’s long curls. He wound it around his finger again and again. “Not sure…maybe someone at school,” he admitted because he really couldn’t remember who had said it. The word had just stuck with him._

_“Well, bondmates are something very, very special,” she began._

_“Yeah?” he replied and snuggled closer. His Mommy smelled like roses and ginger._

_“Yup. They’re like your best friend, but even better.”_

_Jensen stopped playing with his mommy’s curl for a minute and scrunched up his face. How could someone be even better than a best friend?_

_“Even better?” he doubted._

_“Mm hmm,” she hummed and when his mommy hummed, Jensen thought it was nicer than any music he’d ever heard. “And that’s why they’re so rare.”_

_Jensen thought about that for a second, trying to picture how someone could be even better than Chris. Chris was his bestest friend ever and Jensen didn’t believe there could be someone out there who was more than that. How would that feel? And again, it was like Mommy knew exactly what he was thinking. Sometimes Jensen thought that wasn’t fair at all._

_“You know how when you get hungry and your tummy grumbles?” she prodded him._

_Jensen bobbed his head up and down because sometimes his tummy gurgled so much, Chris and Danneel both would tease him and laugh and say it sounded louder than when they growled in their wolf bodies._

_“And,” she continued, “that empty feeling only goes away after you eat a big meal?” Jensen nodded again. “With bondmates, it’s like there’s a different part of your body that feels empty and only your bondmate can fill it up. And you don’t even know that part of you is empty until you meet them. Does that make sense, honey?”_

_Jensen ducked his head because whenever Mommy called him something like that, it made him all warm inside and his face sometimes got hot. “Kinda,” he replied, returning to toy with her golden curls, watching how they sprang up every time he tried to pull them straight. “Are you and Daddy bondmates?”_

_Mommy laughed and it sounded like tinkling bells. “Not even a little bit,” she told him. “Your Daddy and I knew each other since we were pups and he used to play with my hair just like you do now. Only sometimes he was kind of mean and pulled on my curls. You’d never do that to a girl, would you?”_

_Jensen wanted to say “no”, but she was looking at him that way again like she knew what Jensen had done to Danneel last week. He didn’t think he should get in trouble for that because Danni had kind of knocked him down but good after he’d yanked on her red ponytail and he thought that made them even._

_“So if I pull on somebody’s hair, I’m gonna end up mated to them?” And Jensen couldn’t keep the fear out of his voice. He liked Danni, but she was a girl and that was just plain wrong._

_“Well,” his Mommy started, but dragged her answer out and Jensen started to squirm nervously, “probably not, but that would be a good reason not to go around pulling people’s hair, wouldn’t it?”_

_Jensen agreed frantically. It was a really good reason not to ever again, he thought. No way was he going to be mated to a girl._

_“Your Daddy and I grew up together and I can’t remember the first time either one of us said ‘I love you’ because we always did. And I’ll never love anybody else like I do him. We’re mates, but not bondmates.”_

_“But,” Jensen continued, “how do you know you’re not?”_

_“Because bondmates only happen once every couple of generations,” she finally said._

_“But why?” Jensen still wondered. He knew Mommy would have the answer, though. Mommy knew everything and she proved it day after day._

_She hugged him closer and Jensen rested his cheek against her heart. The steady beat always a constant in his young life. “Because bondmates are meant to do great things for our people. They herald great change and their children are also agents of that change.”_

_“Like Harold from school?” Jensen didn’t think Harold was all that special._

_Mommy squeezed him and laughed her tinkling, little bell laugh again. “No…’herald’ means ‘signal’ or ‘announce’.”_

_That made much more sense to Jensen because Harold couldn’t even tie his laces yet, so Jensen didn’t see how he could change much of anything for all of them. Listening to his mommy’s heart was making him sleepy and the next thing he knew, she was off the bed and tucking his blanket around him._

_As she kissed him on the forehead, he asked one more question._

_“What happens if you don’t find your bondmate?” He was kind of worried what would happen if two people so important never met._

_She smiled and brushed his hair away from his forehead. He smiled back at her._

_“Bondmates are destined to be together, honey. Nothing can keep them apart. One way or another, they always find each other. Gaia guides and watches over them. Pleasant dreams,” she whispered._

Gaia _, Jensen thought,_ the great mother of all _…_

_There was more he wanted to ask his mother, but she was fading away, along with his room and even his bed._

In his sleep, Jensen shifted and murmured. Jared, with his back pressed to Jensen’s chest, clasped their joined hands closer to his heart.

The dream changed.

_Jensen was no longer a small boy in his childhood home. He was now a young man, pacing impatiently in the sitting room of alpha Morgan’s home. Ostensibly, he appeared to study the pictures and art that was scattered about the room – family portraits and earth tone watercolors. But in actuality, he was nervous and frustrated. He raked a hand through his closely shorn hair, but the motion didn’t soothe him one bit._

_Seated on one of the large, leather couches was his father. On the surface, the High Alpha appeared calm and composed. Jensen understood the image his father needed to project to others in the Were community, but he was also starting to worry that the quest his father had started would lead to ruin for them all. He feared his father saw demons that were only born of his grief and anguish and eventually, his competence to lead would be called into question._

_Jensen knew he should be grateful and even excited to have been included in pack business at such a relatively young age. It was a sign his father was beginning to train him to accept the mantle Jensen would one day wear, but today Jensen just wanted to get out. His was twitchy in his own skin and his wolf within was restless. He needed to run along the Plateau and lose himself for a while._

_“Jensen.”_

_One word from his father and he seated himself next to him, instantly obeying the unspoken command. From the corner of his eye, Jensen observed his father. He’d visibly aged in the last year, suddenly looking decades older than he should. The gray that only dusted his temples now covered his head completely. And the lines around his eyes – years of joy shared with his mate that creased his skin – had become crevices of despair. Jensen believed when his mother died, she had taken the High Alpha’s heart with her. And Jensen knew he wasn’t the only one who thought as he did._

_Simply thinking of his mother brought a sudden pricking to his eyes, but he tamped down his grief. She’d only been gone a little over a year. Jensen was still in mourning. Everyone understood. Hell, his father was, too, but decided that his hunt outweighed tradition. So here they sat waiting for alpha Morgan to share his tale with the High Alpha in person. Jensen dragged a hand slowly over his mouth. He couldn’t even remember the actual details of why they’d made their way from Dallas to San Antonio pack lands. All he remembered from his father’s hasty explanation before they had departed home was that alpha Morgan had an unusual situation with a Were that might have involved human interference. To be honest, his father probably said more, but Jensen had zoned him out the minute he said ‘human’._

Humans _, he thought._ Always back to the humans _._

_“Would you like to get a breath of fresh air, son?” a smoky voice asked._

_Startled and slightly embarrassed to be caught out daydreaming, Jensen turned toward the woman who had asked the question._

_Beta Ferris was a striking woman, with her long, dark hair and smoldering eyes. But there was a protective, maternal quality that bled through her every action and Jensen suddenly missed his mother so very much in that moment._

_“It’s a little stuffy in here, with the heat and all. August is never kind. Guess that’s why they call them the dog days.” And she smirked._

_Before he could say anything, his father replied, “We’re fine. Thank you.” And even though he was Jensen’s father and High Alpha, Jensen still bristled at the way he overruled him._

_“Thank you,” he told the beta. He might be angry, but he didn’t forget his manners._

_“We were so sorry to hear about your loss,” she said softly, addressing the elephant in the room. Jensen’s father gave a sharp jerk of his head. “I’d only had the pleasure to meet High Beta Ackles once or twice, but I thought she was a kind woman with a bright and loving soul. Rowan’s sacrifice will never be forgotten.”_

_Jensen turned his face away sharply. He refused to cry in front of this woman and he didn’t know how much more he could bear to hear. Since her death, neither he nor his father had spoken her name out loud. And Jensen missed her so._

_Before he could say or do anything embarrassing, Jensen was saved as alpha Morgan chose that moment to enter the room. Everyone rose and the San Antonio alpha clasped first his father’s forearm and then his. The man had rough hands, clearly calloused from hard work and Jensen once again felt a longing to experience a life other than that of a pack heir, if only for a little while. Alpha Morgan was close to his father’s age, but Jensen saw he did not lead a soft life. Still well-muscled, his body, like his hands, spoke of labor and physical challenges. And like his father, Morgan had crow’s feet, but they were less severe and there was still a twinkle of mischief in his hazel eyes._

_“I’m sorry to keep you both waiting,” alpha Morgan apologized as soon as everyone was seated again._

_“That’s quite all right, alpha Morgan,” Jensen’s father answered. “I’m very eager to hear every detail about the pup.”_

_Jensen fidgeted. He didn’t know why today was different, but he had no desire to hear about another alleged case of humans interfering with Weres. Since his mother’s death, that seemed to be all his father could focus on. And while it was true that the cause of the fire that killed her was never discovered, Jensen found it hard to believe that humans would have deliberately set fire to a Were preschool. It had to be a terrible accident that, thanks to his mother’s sacrifice, only claimed her life._

_“I understand, sire, but I did want you to see the pup first. Little devil is just playing hard to get right now,” alpha Morgan huffed._

_Beta Ferris smiled and stood up. Patting her alpha on the arm, she asked, “Would you like me to find him?”_

_He reached over and covered her hand with his for a second. “I’d like to see you have any better luck finding my little Lucky Charm than I had.” Beta Ferris swatted him on the shoulder._

_“You know you can’t keep calling him that,” she teased. “He’s going to need a real name soon enough.”_

_Jensen watched their exchange, which spoke of decades of love, with envy and snuck another look at his father. For a brief moment, his father’s mask slipped and Jensen saw the devastated mate in his place and Jensen’s soul ached for him._

_“High Alpha,” beta Ferris requested, “would you mind if I borrowed your son for a few minutes to help me?”_

_“Of course,” his father replied and nodded once to Jensen._

_He didn’t need to be told twice and jumped to his feet, eager to leave the conspiracy theory discussions to the pack alphas. He followed beta Ferris through the house to the kitchen. She reached for the screen door and when Jensen realized her intentions, quickly reached past her to open it._

_“After you, ma’am.”_

_“None of that ‘ma’am’ stuff. You can call me ‘Sam’ if you like,” she offered once the thin door slapped shut behind them._

_It was marginally cooler outside, but there was no breeze to speak off. The hot, summer air hung like a blanket over everything. Jensen breathed deeply._

_“Sorry you’re so uncomfortable,” she told him. And Jensen wondered if all mothers had superpowers. “Leave them to it, while I go look for my wayward pup. I’m fairly certain he wandered over to the Beavers’ house a little ways down the road there,” she gestured._

_“You don’t need my help?” Jensen was curious why she’d bothered to ask for him in the first place._

_“Nope. But they don’t need to know that,” she winked. “Go ahead and wander around, stretch your legs a touch.” And with that, she made her way down the graveled road, softly whistling off-key._

_Jensen shook his head with a smirk and meandered over to a large oak near the side of the house, but out of sight of the sitting room. It looked like the kind of tree where there should be a swing and as soon as he got close enough, he saw that he was right. A simple, wooden board was suspended by two, well-worn lengths of rope and dangled from a sturdy branch._

_Jensen approached it slowly. He let his hand slide down the rough hemp and briefly wondered how many children had played here. The seat was smooth and hinted at childhoods full of laughter, like his had been before his mother’s death. He flopped down on the seat, suddenly overwhelmed with an emptiness that was more than his mother’s death and it almost stole his breath away. Without realizing it, he nudged the ground with one foot, setting up a gentle, lazy motion and let his thoughts drift._

_After a few minutes, Jensen caught a whiff of something new nearby. He stopped his swinging and looked around. The yard appeared empty, with only the drone of cicadas to keep him company. He scented the air, breathing deep, and then he spotted him._

_“You can come out now,” he cajoled and dropped from the swing to his knees, trying to appear less threatening._

_He held still and waited._

_Soon enough, a tiny snout peeked out of some blue hydrangea bushes nearby and Jensen flashed back to when he watched the film_ Bambi _and the fawn discovered the little skunk, Flower. Jensen chuckled at the thought._

_“S’okay, baby,” he murmured. Hesitantly, the pup slinked out of the bushes, skinny tail tucked between his rear legs._

_Jensen thought the pup might have had brown fur, but that could have simply been the mud. The little guy (one whiff and Jensen knew the omega was a boy) was completely covered in the stuff. It seemed pretty clear he must have discovered a small waterhole nearby to play around in and cool off. Jensen thought that wasn’t a half bad idea._

_“Wanna show me how you beat the heat? Looks like it was fun,” he said as the pup drew nearer._

_Although he couldn’t make out the color of the boy’s fur, Jensen did see his champagne eyes. One look and the itching under his skin eased and his wolf calmed for the first time that day. As he stared over at the boy, he saw the pup give a full body shudder in return. He whined softly at Jensen._

_“C’mere, little one.” And he surprised himself by using a phrase he’d only ever heard his mother use on him. But this time, thinking of her didn’t hurt; it made him smile instead. The pup seemed to sense Jensen’s mood and yipped playfully. He dropped down on his front paws – they were pretty big for such a little fellow – and stuck his butt in the air, tail wagging madly._

_Jensen snorted good-naturedly and started to crawl towards the pup, mock-stalking him. The pup pranced around in response and was about to leap onto Jensen when beta Ferris appeared out of nowhere and swooped him up in her arms._

_“Oh, no you don’t, you little stinker!” she teased him, holding the squirming bundle close._

_Jensen dropped back on his haunches as he looked up at the two Weres, inexplicably disappointed by the beta’s sudden return. “It’s okay, Sam,” he informed her and meant it._

_“We can’t be getting the High Alpha’s son all dirty,” she explained to the no longer shy pup that refused to hold still. “And you,” she continued, catching Jensen’s eye, “can’t hide out any more, I’m afraid.”_

_Jensen sighed and got up, brushing the dust from his jeans. “I guess you’re right,” he reluctantly agreed._

_“And it’s bath time for you, mister,” she informed the pup. As soon as she mentioned “bath”, the pup shifted and the beta was holding a dirty toddler in her grasp. She adjusted her grip as the little boy wrapped his arms around her neck. With her free hand, she tickled his round tummy and he ducked his head and squealed joyfully._

_“If we don’t get you cleaned up, alpha Morgan’s going to start calling you a mudpuppy instead of his Lucky Charm. Now tell Jensen ‘bye-bye’.” The beta twisted around so the boy was facing Jensen. The brown-haired, rosy cheeked toddler flopped his arm up and down at Jensen._

_“Buh-bye,” he singsonged to the young alpha and Jensen thought he spotted dimples in between the smears of dirt on his tiny face._

_“Bye-bye, little one,” he answered and waved in return._

_Sam turned and walked back towards the house. Jensen trailed a few feet behind, smiling and making funny faces at the tot, who giggled and snickered the whole time, never taking his eyes off of Jensen._

Jensen woke suddenly. The alpha jerked back slightly, briefly surprised to find himself wrapped around Jared’s back. The boy was still asleep, which didn’t surprise him in the least. Yesterday had been an exhausting experience, both physically and emotionally, for the young omega. Jensen slowly extricated his hand from Jared’s and gently trailed his fingers along the boy’s arm, before yanking his hand away. He closed his eyes and slowly pressed his forehead to the crown of Jared’s head. He knew what had woken him.

Jared was going into heat.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for discussion of past suicide attempts!

 

When the lights slowly came up in their anemic mockery of a simulated dawn, Jensen found himself leaning against the wall, knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them, watching over the sleeping omega. His dreams – and he was genuinely surprised they hadn’t been nightmares – had disturbed him nonetheless. For the first time in years, he’d dreamt of his mother, Rowan. And that dream-memory had left a warm feeling inside him. A dedicated teacher, she had given him the gift of knowledge every day and ended each one they spent together with a story. He’d forgotten about bondmates, as though when she died he’d had to put away childish things. And the second part of the dream…

He finally understood why Jared’s story earlier had resonated with him and seemed almost familiar. He had met the little omega not one month after he’d found his way to the San Antonio pack. But he’d shut out most of the memories of those years, when all his father seemed interested in was chasing down any hint or whiff of suspicious, human interactions with Weres and Jensen was dragged along like an unwilling accomplice. Even though it was shaping up to look like his father had been right – he _was_ sitting in a cage, after all – Jensen knew he should have been more supportive and understanding back then. But he had been a young Were dealing with his grief, or maybe not dealing with his grief, in a different fashion from his father. And that trip to alpha Morgan’s had set off a series of events that eventually drove a wedge between father and son that would span years.

The more his father was determined to prove the humans evil, the more Jensen wanted to prove they weren’t the monsters his father fervently chased after. And when they finally returned home from their tournée, he was restless and itchy again. There was an empty, unsatisfied hole deep within that nothing settled. He ended up leaving his father on uncertain terms and went out into the world of humans. Forging identification papers wasn’t easy, but Weres had gotten proficient at it over the years to help blend in with the humans. His were more than good enough.

He took jobs on a whim and drifted across the country like a vagabond. Jensen shied away from other Weres and kept company strictly with humans. He never stayed in one place too long, and did his best to hide his true nature. Short order cook in one state, auto mechanic in another. He picked up skills like calluses, and he never lingered in one place long enough for someone to guess his true nature. And, he realized, he’d gotten cocky and sloppy. The last job he’d taken had been his downfall. When that huge stack of lumber had started to fall on his coworker, he’d acted without thought and caught most of the beams before they could hurt him. A display of strength that impressive couldn’t be written off as an adrenalin rush. Maybe it had been Mike, maybe it had been someone else. Maybe it had been all of them together when push came to shove, but humans had sold him out in the end. He wondered how much they got? What was today’s equivalent of thirty pieces of silver anyways?

Next to him, Jared murmured in his sleep. It was a hurt sound; the whimper of a lost pup. That drew the alpha from his musings. Jensen loosened his arms and stretched out his left leg, so it rested flush against the omega’s back. Jared settled right away. The corners of the alpha’s mouth reluctantly pulled up in the ghost of a smile.

Jensen thought of that little, dirty-faced child with his champagne eyes and helpless giggles. Should he tell the boy they’d met so many years ago? Would that make what was bound to happen next easier or would it merely be a betrayal of that earlier, simpler innocence? Jensen wasn’t sure what to do. The only thing he was certain of was that they were running out of time and options.

Jared didn’t sleep for much longer. Soon enough, the boy was rolling and sighing. Now facing Jensen, Jared reached out and slid his hand over the alpha’s thigh. Like birds’ wings, his long lashes fluttered delicately against his high cheekbones before finally opening completely. He looked up and as soon as he saw Jensen’s face, his Cupid ’s bow mouth formed a sweet smile. Jensen had no choice but to return it. One fast glance at their surroundings, however, and the smile faded away as though it had never been.

“I-I was dreaming,” he said softly, as if that explained it all, in a sleepy tone. “I was home and-and you were there.” His voice lifted at the end, a mix of awe and surprise.

“Yeah?” Jensen replied and ran his rough fingers through the omega’s tussled locks, slowly combing out a few tangles. The boy closed his eyes, lulled by the gentle action if his peaceful expression was anything to go by. They passed a few minutes like that. The motion calmed and centered them both.

“How’re you feeling?” Jensen whispered and the question felt traitorous. As soon as the words had passed his lips, Jensen noticed Jared tense up slightly. Probably nothing that would show up on the cameras, but he sensed the change clear as day.

“’m okay,” the boy mumbled. They both knew that wasn’t true.

Jensen hummed, but returned to his rhythmic stroking. It took several minutes, but Jared eventually relaxed again. The boy turned more fully against him, burying his face against the alpha’s thigh. “It’s close.” The words were muffled against Jensen’s leg.

“I know.” What more could Jensen say? What should he say?

The pair stayed the way they were until two hazmat-suited figures showed up. Only one entered and unloaded a tray with the usual “morning” fare. When they exited, the outer door was sealed and the inner slid open like clockwork. As Jensen made to get to his feet, Jared grabbed his wrist and tugged him closer.

Leaning near Jensen’s ear, the omega breathed, “There haven’t been two before. This is something different.” Jensen had to take a moment to gather his control. The boy’s words whispering hotly against the shell of his ear almost made him shiver and he couldn’t allow that loss of control to show.

He patted Jared on his slender arm and rose soundlessly. Although it wasn’t much of a walk to the airlock, Jensen kept a close eye on the two. Since Jared pointed out that the increased number was a break in protocol, he had a sinking feeling the humans had picked up on the omega’s rising body temperature. But neither did anything odd, so Jensen collected their breakfast, such as it was, and returned to Jared. Once he was settled again, he divvied up the food and handed Jared his. The omega frowned at the plate of lukewarm mush.

“Ten minutes.” The deeper voice from yesterday resounded over the intercom.

Jensen began to scoop up the bland paste, one eye on the boy. The omega swirled a finger through the glop disinterestedly before eventually putting his plate down in exchange for the water bottle. After he took a swig, he leaned towards Jensen and mumbled, “You can have mine.”

“Can’t eat?” It was a redundant question, Jensen knew, but he asked it anyway.

Jared shook his head, uneven bangs falling into his eyes. His skin was paler than before and clammy looking.

“Not this shit again,” the other figure snapped. Mark’s voice. “You know it won’t work.” He advanced so that he was inches from the glass and flipped up his visor, trying hard for intimidation and effect. “Eat it or we will make you just like before,” he threatened lowly. His stare drilled into the boy.

Jared scowled, but grabbed the plate and began shoveling the stuff into his mouth. Jensen winced, watching the omega force himself to eat and wondered what they’d done to him in the past. When the plate was nearly empty, Jared let the container fall to the floor. There was no satisfying clang since the thing was made of plastic, but it was the gesture that counted.  Gestures were all that they had for the time being.

Jensen collected the empties wordlessly and returned them to the airlock. Again, he never let his eyes stray, but watched the two scientists closely. They didn’t move. And, as before, Mark’s eyes never left Jared. Jensen clenched his fists tightly and forced himself to swallow the growl that simmered in his throat. He’d barely turned around before Jared was running to their stainless steel toilet. The boy crashed to his knees and retched violently. His pasty breakfast spewed out and splattered the metal bowl. Jensen was by him in an instant. And almost as fast, Mark was on the opposite side, plastered up against the glass wall. Jensen was overcome with the irrational urge to cover Jared from their prying eyes; as though even the boy’s suffering was something the humans were unworthy of witnessing. But it was pointless in their glass cage with all its cameras. That reality, however, didn’t change how Jensen felt one iota.

Fingers splayed, Jensen rubbed up and down Jared’s knobby spine and noticed how the cotton of his shirt was damp with sweat. The boy’s back bowed once more with the strain of expelling the last of the food before he slumped bonelessly to sit on the floor. Jensen squatted directly behind him as Jared folded his arms across the edge of the bowl and leaned his head against them. He was sure what limited reserves the omega had were exhausted between his sickness and the other changes his body was going through.

“What’s wrong with him?” Mark demanded, sharp voice brittle and grating. “You know something.” He cast Jensen a cold eye before returning to stare at Jared.

Jensen continued to stroke the boy, who still rested against the toilet and trembled slightly. The device only flushed once a day and they had hours to go before the vomit was washed away. Neither acknowledged the human, silent in their solidarity.

“Tell me what’s going on or I will make you lick out every last drop of food from that skeevy toilet,” he hissed at the boy.

Jensen finally growled low in his throat, nothing more than a faint rumble, but that seemed to rouse the omega. He lifted his head weakly and returned Mark’s glare. “I can’t stomach that slop right now. You can make me lick your fucking boots if you want and I’ll still gladly spew all over them a minute later.” He struggled to rise and Jensen discreetly helped him up, keeping one hand at the small of his back the whole time. Jared dragged an arm across him mouth and spat, “I can play this game with you all day.” Slowly, he spread his arms out wide. “I’ve got nothing but time.” Behind him, Jensen straightened with pride. His boy was strong.

His boy.

Jensen knew then with absolute certainty that he wanted Jared to be his. There was no denying it. And it wasn’t because of a half-remembered fairytale. It was because of his strength and grace and a hundred things Jensen couldn’t even name, but felt nonetheless. But what did Jared want?

Both the human and the omega glowered at one another. Finally, the other scientist approached and spoke softly to Mark. With a final sneer, Mark snapped his visor shut and walked away, the other figure trailing behind him. He’d probably been reminded not to interfere with anything related to the omega’s heat. Small blessings, Jensen supposed. They'd take them where they could find them.

Without appearing obvious, Jensen helped Jared back over to the bare mat and sat on the floor next to it. The boy lowered his eyes and fiddled with his hands. They both knew an awkward discussion was on the horizon. There was no avoiding it after Jared’s sickness. It was a clear indicator his heat was imminent. Omega males typically couldn’t eat for the two days preceding a heat. Their lower gastrointestinal tract had to be completely empty for mating since the muscular walls of the organs there had to change the direction that they propelled matter. And Jared hadn’t been lying to Mark; they could force feed him all they wanted and his body would still reject it every time.

“What Mark said before about the food,” the alpha said quietly. “Were you sick, Jared?”

Jensen didn’t think it was possible, but Jared blanched even more. The boy continued to twist his fingers nervously and didn’t meet the alpha’s gaze. Jensen simply leaned closer and placed his callused hand over the omega’s, to stop him from wringing his long fingers and show his support. Jared’s twitching stilled immediately and he slowly turned his head to face him.

“I wasn’t sick. I-I...” the boy's voice petered out. Jensen squeezed his hands again and nodded encouragingly. “It was about two months in, I guess,” he eventually continued and then looked imploringly into Jensen’s eyes. “I was tired. I was tired of them and I wanted it to stop,” he admitted before dropping his eyes again. “I know it was cowardly and that they’d try and take another omega again, but I just couldn’t. When the first time didn’t work –”

Jensen sucked in a sharp breath. “First time?” he croaked.

Jared raised his head and peered at Jensen through the curtain of his bangs. Jensen recognized the boy was using his hair as a shield and gripped his hands more firmly. Jared freed one, however, and stroked it against his own jaw slowly. “Didn’t you wonder about this?” he asked.

Jensen knew that omega males’ facial hair grew much more slowly compared to alphas, once again due to the lower concentration of certain hormones. Jensen mimicked Jared’s motion on himself, rubbing his chin, and felt the noticeable stubble after only the few days he’d been with the boy; he honestly hadn’t even considered how Jared had remained so smooth skinned.

“With everything going on, I kinda didn’t notice,” he joked. Jared ducked his head, but the alpha caught the flash of a rueful smile. “Do they shave you when they take you out of here?”

“They do now,” Jared replied lowly. “Collecting their samples.”

“Not at first?”

Jared shook his head. “Someone made the mistake of forgetting to remove a disposable razor that was in with the little toiletry kit they left with that thing.” He jutted his chin toward their prison style toilet/sink combination. “It took me a while to build up to the idea. I kept hoping…” he trailed off. There was no need to say what he’d been hoping for – a rescue that never came. “But there was just a point where I couldn’t anymore.” Jared paused and looked at Jensen so earnestly, searching for understanding. Maybe forgiveness.

Jensen’s heart ached. Weres could suffer through a lot. But they could also be driven to extremes. He truly believed Jared saw no other way out, but the thought of the omega no longer in the world pained him in a way his own mother’s actual passing hadn’t. He clasped Jared’s hand tighter. Jared apparently discovered something in Jensen’s eyes that allowed him to keep speaking.

“I knew I’d have to move quickly,” he continued timidly. “Broke the plastic razor and had the blade free in seconds. But all I managed to do was slice my left arm open before someone – Mark, probably – was firing the collar. And I lost my chance.”

Jensen didn’t say a single word. He released the boy’s hand and instantly Jared began to curl in on himself. But Jensen moved closer and slowly captured Jared’s left hand with both of his. The alpha gently pulled the omega’s arm even closer and adjusted it so that he could get a better look at the tender underside of Jared’s forearm. The boy sat, as if mesmerized, and allowed the alpha free rein.

Sure enough, nearly five inches long, a still-slightly pink and puckered scar was visible. Jensen cradled Jared’s arm with one hand, and delicately traced the lumpy length of the older wound with a forefinger from the other. Weres healed quickly and usually without blemish, but the silver had probably diminished Jared’s natural healing ability and he had been left with the scar. As he continued to stroke the boy, gooseflesh raced up Jared’s arm. They both locked gazes.

“Jensen,” Jared whispered.

The alpha slowly released Jared’s arm, but recaptured his right hand and held it fast. “What happened the second time?” he rasped.

“Stopped eating, stopped exercising. Just stopped. For a while, no one seemed to take much notice,” he shrugged, “and I was grateful. But, eventually, they caught on. They kept me in that white room, strapped down, even though it wasn’t necessary at that point. I was too weak to even raise my head, let alone try something. They shoved a tube down my nose, a catheter up my…” Jared paused and Jensen almost laughed as a rosy flush bloomed on the boy’s cheeks, “…you know. I lost track, at first, of how long they kept me naked like that where everyone could touch and do what they wanted.

“Maybe then they figured I was a lost cause, because they did all kinds of tests on me. Tried out different experiments with silver, drugs…you name it and they did it. I think it surprised them more than me when I survived.” And Jared let out a brittle, sick laugh at the revelation, like his survival was some kind of twisted joke.

Jensen couldn’t sit still for that. He shifted to his knees and nudged the boy over so he could sit alongside him on the mat. He no longer cared about the cameras and slung his arm around Jared’s shoulder and pulled him near.

“I’m glad they stopped you.” He brushed his lips against Jared’s ear and the omega shivered. “Don’t get me wrong – they’re bastards, every last one of them and I’ll see them all dead. I swear it on my soul.” Jensen tugged at the boy’s shoulders until Jared met his gaze. “I swear it,” he rasped in a voice gone gravel-rough, staring into multicolored eyes. “But I’m so grateful that you’re still here, sweetheart.”

Jared’s bottom lip trembled and Jensen could see wetness pool along his lower lids. “But now they get what they want,” he mourned, his voice barely loud enough to be heard.

Jensen leaned closer and placed a kiss at Jared’s temple. When he pulled his head back, he looked down at the omega and smiled. “Nah, they’ve fucked themselves,” he told the boy conspiratorially. Jared sucked in a breath.

“How?” he asked with a hint of hopefulness.

Jensen reached over with his free hand and cupped Jared’s jaw for a moment before sliding his hand down the boy’s throat, thumb brushing against his Adam’s apple, to lightly tug at the silver collar. “These fuckin’ things block out almost everything. I can barely smell you even now. And it’s not like we’re animals. We can say ‘no’. These silver pieces of shit just make the job easier.” He smiled at the boy and was secretly delighted to see some of the darkness, which had settled over his young face like a shroud, lift a bit.

“’For 'tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard’,” Jared whispered, one side of his mouth quirking up.

“ _Hamlet_ , act three, scene four,” Jensen replied easily and settled a little closer to the omega. “Kind of a downer as far as plays go, though.”

“Sorry to interrupt your discourse on Shakespeare,” a voice crackled over the intercom. “But there’s a tiny flaw in your theory.” Both Weres turned in unison to see Mitch, in one of his impeccable suits, by the intercom.

Jensen cursed softly. The collar did such an efficient job blocking his senses that when he let himself get wrapped up in Jared – in that tiny moment when all he could feel was the omega – he totally missed the human’s approach. He’d started to let his guard down and he couldn’t afford to grow careless. Not now. The alpha held his tongue. The human was obviously there to gloat. Jensen wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

The silence stretched on.

Eventually, Mitch broke first. “Let me spell some things out to you both,” he began. “The omega is going into heat. Whether you,” he flicked a dismissive glance towards Jensen, “breed him or not is the only choice either of you have in the matter.” He crossed his arms and widened his stance. “If you refuse to let…nature…take its course, we will step in. You will be milked and the omega will be artificially inseminated with your sperm. Or,” he paused for effect, “we could try for a hybrid breed. I’m sure I can think of someone around here willing to step up and assist me with that task.”

Before he even knew what he was doing, Jensen jumped up into a crouch, protectively blocking Jared from Mitch’s assessing look. A low snarl reverberated through the cage. The sound, however, only made Mitch smile like a benevolent priest.

“Those,” he smirked as he pushed up his glasses, “are your only options. You don't get to say 'no'.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gets the full NC-17 rating!

 

An entire “day” had come and gone since Mitch delivered his ultimatum. Jensen was once again sitting with his back pressed against the wall. With his forearms propped on his bent knees, he kept his hands loosely clasped together. On the exterior, he was calm and relaxed. On the inside, however, his thoughts were as tumultuous and restless as the omega’s steady pacing.

Jared moved from one end of their tiny cage to another, occasionally scratching his arms, chasing some itch he couldn’t stop. Jensen didn’t need to touch him to know his temperature was even more elevated than yesterday; the boy’s flushed face was evidence enough. They didn’t have much time left before the humans would force the issue of breeding. If they were going to choose, they’d have to do it soon, although Jensen had to fight not to choke on the human concept of choice.

Trapped in a gray prison of glass and steel, monitored 24/7 via cameras and other sensors that Jensen didn’t have to see to know their cage was lined with, they had nowhere to go. Jared could choose to let Jensen mate with him or have the humans force his seed inside him. Some fucking choice. Jensen could either be his rapist, or let the humans rape him again with their objects and cruel procedures all in the name of their science. And for what, he wondered? Was this a new gimmick they were hoping to foist on their own society? Had things gotten so boring for humans with their incessant need to tamper with the very structure and makeup of a living thing’s genetics that now someone thought a human male having a baby had a place on the earth? Had they grown bored with the plants they’d tried to refashion to suit their every whim, the animals long gone that they’d tried to resurrect and their own offspring that they’d tamper with in utero? When would it stop?

Jared ceased his relentless pacing as two suited men appeared. Jensen tensed up as one entered the airlock with a tray, but even from where he was seated, Jensen could make out that they had a single protein bar in addition to the two water bottles. Like breakfast, there was only food for one. Apparently Jared’s message had gotten through to them. As soon as the human exited, Jared snatched up their evening meal and rejoined Jensen on the floor.

The alpha felt a twinge of guilt when he ate the bar, but he quickly tamped that down. Nourishment, however frugal, wasn’t something he could simply pass on. And it wasn’t as though Jared could currently stomach anything anyway. But the pang of guilt nestled deep inside him continued to grow with each bite. With Jared close by, Jensen was acutely aware of the heat radiating off the boy, could see the dampness darkening patches of his shirt under his arms and down the center of his back. Curls clung to the nape of his neck in thick swirls. And a rosy blush covered his face and throat. Jensen idly wondered how the flushed skin of his torso might feel under his hands, before he shook himself from the shameful thoughts. He was no better than the filthy humans.

He silently returned the empties to the airlock when they were finished.

“Have fun tonight,” Mark snickered over the intercom. “Otherwise, come tomorrow, we will.” Jensen stood stock still and watched the two leave the room before he returned to Jared’s side.

The omega had assumed Jensen’s earlier position. Jensen didn’t know if the boy was scared or trying to self-soothe, but his arms were wrapped so tightly around his legs, Jensen was afraid he’d snap a bone. Dropping down next to him, the alpha was about to rest a hand on his shoulders when the boy mumbled out a question.

“What’s it like?”

Jensen dragged a hand over his mouth and sighed. Jared didn’t need to elaborate; Jensen understood implicitly. “Sex? Knotting?”

“Either,” Jared shrugged without making eye contact. “Both, I guess.”

“Well, I can tell you about one but not the other,” Jensen admitted softly. When he turned to look at the omega, Jensen was hard-pressed not to laugh, despite their dire situation. Jared’s mouth was practically hanging open in what could only be described as utter shock.

“You-you’ve never…” The boy seemed unable to finish the sentence.

“Nope,” Jensen replied easily, popping out the “p” in the word.

“Not even…” And he waved a hand around in the air as though that could encapsulate everything that Jared was trying to ask, but too embarrassed to voice.

“Not even a little bit,” Jensen told him with a smile, trying to make light of it. Rather than have the boy suffer through another awkward question, he explained, “I was saving my knot for my mate.” Jensen knew it was somewhat rare for an alpha his age not to have knotted before, but it wasn’t unheard of. And he wasn’t self-conscious by his choices in the least, even if it did make him sort of a virgin in that respect. He didn’t, however, expect his revelation to affect the omega the way it did.

Jared covered his face with his hands and started to weep.

It was Jensen’s turn to be gobsmacked for a moment as he watched the boy break down. Only in the false cover of darkness had Jared dared to reveal his pain and heartache to the alpha. But here he was in “broad daylight”, coming completely undone. His shock lasted for barely ten seconds before he clambered over and pulled the shaking omega across his lap. It was awkward – Jared was gangly and all long limbs – but Jensen managed and then wrapped himself protectively about him.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he whispered and rocked Jared gently. “What’s this for?” he breathed into the teary boy’s ear. But all Jared did was shake his head and continue to cry. Jared’s collar burned slightly where it pushed against his chest, but the alpha remained stoic about it. He was pretty certain his was brushing against Jared’s temple, despite his efforts to adjust his grip to prevent that from happening. When it didn’t appear that the boy was going to settle anytime soon, Jensen began to hum a tune under his breath. He didn’t really pay attention to what it was, simply continued to croon softly and hoped it helped calm the omega.

Almost immediately, he understood why Jared had broken down. The boy would be deep in the throes of his heat soon, collar or not, and all his emotions were now perilously close to the surface. Heat was such an intensely personal and private thing; something an omega would only gift another with if they had earned the right and been found worthy of their trust. Jensen hadn't earned anything. The best he could offer was to spare Jared from the humans’ continued violations and what kind of consolation was that really?

“Please don’t cry, sweetheart,” he murmured after a while. “I’m so sorry.”

Jared dropped his hands to Jensen’s shirt and balled the material up in his fists. “How can you say that?” he whimpered. “I’m the one who’s so very sorry.”

Jensen pulled his head back, trying to catch the boy’s eyes. “What in the world do you have to feel sorry about?”

Jared lowered his gaze. Jensen loosened his hold, keeping his left arm curled around Jared’s shoulders, and placed his right hand under the boy’s jaw and gently, but firmly, tilted his head back up so that they could face each other. “Explain that one to me, Jared,” he said.

The omega’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears in the slowly dimming light. “You-you…” he stammered. Taking a watery breath, he continued more steadily, “You’ve been saving yourself for the one you love. Your mate. And now I…”

“You what?” Jensen prodded, using his still free hand to thumb away the new tears that had appeared like raindrops.

“I’m gonna rape you,” Jared hissed and thumped his hot fists against the alpha’s broad chest. “I’m no better than the humans.” And he tried to wriggle away from Jensen then, but the alpha was having none of it.

“Trust me,” Jensen rasped, “when I say that you aren’t forcing me to do a damn thing I don’t want to do.” And although he hated himself for it, all of the omega’s squirming in his lap had started to stir him; so close together, Jensen was able to pick up a trace of Jared’s scent despite the collar, probably not equipped to dampen a heat-driven omega’s pheromones completely. While Jared stared in surprised silence, Jensen dipped his head and nosed around behind the omega’s jaw, above the collar. Tracing the bone up to Jared’s ear, he rubbed his nose back and forth and inhaled the damp skin there deeply. The boy smelled like spring rain and rich loam. He smelled like life. And the scent went straight to his groin. The alpha placed a kiss on a sweat-dampened curl that stuck to Jared’s throat.

He couldn’t hide his arousal from Jared then, as his thickening cock nudged against the boy where he sat. Jensen felt the tips of his ears grow hot, but he faced Jared head on. “See? I’m the rapist here,” he confessed.

Those words jolted Jared out of his stupor. “You could never be that,” he vehemently argued. “You’re nothing like them. Nothing at all,” he repeated and shook Jensen by the shirt for emphasis. Jensen remained quiet. Jared let go with his left hand and dragged his arm under his nose, clearing away some of the tears and mucus there. His expression grew firm and his voice stronger. “I’d be so lucky to have a mate like you.”

Jensen chuckled bitterly; he couldn’t help it. “Jared, you’re only saying that…” and he paused to place a finger gently against Jared’s candy-pink lips with the slightest hint of pressure to silence the boy when it was apparent he was about to argue again, “and maybe trying to convince yourself that you’re feelin’ that because I am the lesser of the two obscene evils you’re facin’ here.” Jensen wasn’t even aware of the Texas twang that had started to creep back into his voice – something that only happened when he became emotional.

Jared fixed Jensen with a stern glare and twisted around until he was facing the alpha, swinging a leg across Jensen’s powerful thighs so that he was straddling him. “Don’t you dare do that,” he told Jensen, poking him in the chest with his forefinger after each word.

“Don’t do what?” Jensen couldn’t help but ask, surprised by the boy’s changed demeanor.

“Don’t you dare diminish my choice here, Jensen. _My_ choice,” the omega declared.

Jensen caught the boy’s hand in his and their fingers tangled naturally. With his other, he swept some of the omega’s wayward bangs away from his slanted eyes. He tried to ignore Jared’s new position and how the boy’s firm backside rubbed deliciously against his hardening cock, but was rapidly losing that battle as blood continued to surge south. He struggled to wrestle control back from his wolf, which was starting to claw and thrash, demanding to take the omega and make him his mate. The chant of _MineMineMine_ threatened to drown out every other voice inside his head.

“There’s no choice here, Jared,” he argued. “There are just degrees of violation.”

“No,” Jared’s voice rose. “I do have a choice. Don’t you dare take that away from me.” The omega then mimicked Jensen and placed his long, delicate fingers against the alpha’s plush mouth to silence his protests. Jared took a deep breath before continuing. “I would rather have the humans shove their instruments inside me than ever allow someone to mount me unasked, to touch me inside with their body without invitation.” The boy squared his shoulders and then ducked his head down near Jensen’s jaw. The alpha couldn’t control the shivers that coursed through him this time as the omega’s hot, moist breath ghosted along his neck. Jared sat back, satisfied.

“I choose you, alpha,” he said with great resolve. “I choose you, Jensen,” he repeated, softer this time. Jensen’s heart was hammering so loudly, he idly wondered if the boy could hear it despite the collar. “The question is,” he continued and was suddenly shy and uncertain again, starting to lower his hand, “would you choose me?”

Before he was able to move away completely, Jensen trapped his hand. Never breaking eye contact, the alpha slowly licked the boy’s fingers in long, easy swipes, before sucking Jared’s forefinger inside the wet cavern of his mouth. Jared inhaled sharply as Jensen laved the slim digit with his tongue before biting down on the tip, just the right side of painful. He watched as Jared’s eyes closed almost against his will and his head fell back slightly. Jensen let go of Jared’s hand, slid his arms up the boy’s back and pulled him close. Surging up to lock his lips on Jared’s throat, he tasted the salt there. The sting of the collar touching his chin broke the spell temporarily. Leaning his head back, Jensen watched as Jared slowly opened his eyes and met his gaze again. So close, the alpha could see Jared’s pupils had all but eaten up his irises, leaving only black pools of want behind in the vague light.

“I will always choose you, Jared,” he promised huskily. “Always.”

Jared caught Jensen’s face with his hands, tilted his head and chased Jensen’s lips with his own hungry ones. The alpha wasn’t certain who was more shocked by the brazen action, but he was more than willing to get with the program. He opened his mouth slightly and snaked out his tongue, pressing against the seam of Jared’s lips. At first, the boy didn’t understand, and Jensen had to remind himself that while he was still a virgin in one respect, the omega in his arms was a true innocent in every sense of the word. He prodded and coaxed for a bit until the boy gasped and then Jensen slipped his tongue inside.

He teased and twirled his tongue around Jared’s. The omega was hesitant at first, but caught on soon enough and the two tangled their limber muscles in a wet, slick dance. Jensen was so overwhelmed by the feel and smell of the boy that he was unaware of Jared raking his hands through his closely shorn hair until the boy gripped it a little too tightly in his arousal.

Jensen yipped and released Jared’s mouth. “Hey now,” he chided teasingly.

Jared’s face was even more flushed than before and his gaze was somewhat unfocused. He dropped his head by Jensen’s ear and then sucked in the tender lobe he found there. Jensen couldn’t control the low grumble that welled up in his chest. He threaded one hand up through Jared’s unruly locks and held the omega in place, despite the press of the collar. “Yes,” he moaned when the boy’s clever tongue traced the shell of his ear. Desire was coiling in his stomach like a serpent, winding its way up his spine. Suddenly, the boy turned his attention back to the fleshy lobe and nipped hard, like a bratty pup.

Cradling the boy’s head with one hand, Jensen curled the other around his waist and lowered them both to the mat carefully. Resting between Jared’s thighs, the alpha reached over his shoulder and grabbed the back of his shirt with one hand. In a swift motion, he yanked the cotton t-shirt over his head and tossed it aside with abandon. Jared was watching him with heavy-lidded eyes. Almost tentatively, the omega reached up with his hands and stroked shaky fingers over and across the alpha’s broad chest. Jensen couldn’t help himself under the onslaught of those uncertain touches; his chest puffed up and he flexed his pectorals. His wolf was pleased by the omega’s caresses, relieved that he hadn’t been found wanting. Jared’s nails grazed his nipples and Jensen hissed as tiny jolts of pleasure zinged through his body. He was dying to return the sensation.

He caught Jared’s wrists gently and lowered them down beside the omega’s head. The boy immediately dropped his eyes and rolled his full, lower lip into his mouth and bit down on it. “It’s not what you’re thinking,” Jensen whispered, sinking down to steal a kiss. He sucked that abused lip into his mouth, pulling it away from Jared until it popped juicily from his grip. “I want to see you,” he explained and released Jared’s wrists. He was secretly delighted the boy left them in place.

Jensen sat back on his haunches and slid his callused fingers under the hem of Jared’s sweat soaked shirt. When his thumbs rubbed against the boy’s waist, he felt Jared’s abs quiver. But the alpha knew it wasn’t out of desire. Glancing back towards the omega’s face, Jensen saw that his gaze darted around the room, flitting from camera to camera. The artificial light had almost faded away, but they both knew the humans would have some kind of night vision capabilities in place. They were always watched. When he saw the alpha watching, he gave Jensen a self-deprecating smile.

“It’s not quite how I thought this would go,” he admitted with a slight shrug of a bony shoulder.

Jensen nodded and smiled knowingly. He lowered himself down carefully and whispered in Jared’s ear, “How was it supposed to be?” before sitting back up. He locked his eyes on Jared’s multicolored ones so that the boy would only see him. Jared rolled his lower lip in again and nibbled on the corner. Jensen felt his cock throb at the innocently erotic gesture.

“We would have met on my pack’s land,” Jared started softly. “You would have been there visiting for some reason and I wouldn’t have been able to tear my eyes away from you. With your golden tipped hair and jewel-like eyes, I would realize I’d never seen anyone as handsome as you. But it would be your kindness, strength and your absolute honor that would have stolen my heart.”

Jensen sucked in a sharp breath at the boy’s words. He splayed his fingers around Jared’s waist and began to drag his hands up, the hem of the boy’s shirt tugged along with the action, revealing his skin inch by torturous inch. Jensen tried to hide the wince when his fingers mapped out the hills and valleys of the omega’s ribcage. When his thumbs rubbed across Jared’s nipples, he felt the twin buds tighten and peak. He took a moment to circle them with his thumbs, savoring the way Jared’s breath hitched when he did.

“Go on,” he urged, smirking and chuffed with himself when it took Jared a moment to gather his wits.

“I-I don’t know how or why I would have caught your attention, but I would have somehow. I could tell you wanted me,” he rasped. “I would wait until twilight before I ran.” He paused again. Jensen used the break to pull Jared’s damp shirt completely free of his body and toss it aside as he had his own. He swooped down and stole another kiss.

“You’d make me chase you?” he licked against the boy’s sweet lips, teasing.

Jared finally raised his hands from the mat and slid them up and down the alpha’s firm biceps. “I’d make you earn it,” he replied, voice dropping low and certain. Jensen shivered at the words, his cock painfully tenting the material of his scrub pants. He rolled to his left side to keep from rutting mindlessly against Jared’s groin. “And when I caught you?” he rasped, dragging the back of his right hand down the boy’s slender torso to circle the tender skin around Jared’s navel. “Because I would catch you,” he promised wickedly, dipping one finger in and out of the omega’s bellybutton.

“It would be in a clearing,” Jared eventually continued, somewhat dazed. “A place where the tall pines had parted enough to create a hole straight up to the sky.” His breathing caught when Jensen dipped his hand lower and plucked at the ties of his pants. “The moon would shine down with her blessing.”

“Wrapped in the arms of Gaia,” the alpha nodded approvingly, “under Luna’s watchful eye.” He shifted back to his knees and slowly slid Jared’s pants down the never-ending length of his legs until the boy was gloriously naked before him. His eyes raked up Jared’s lean limbs, lingering briefly at the boy’s cock, so flushed with blood and desire it was nearly purple, to travel back up to his face. The omega’s hair stuck to his forehead in sweaty clumps and his face was fever-bright. But Jensen had never seen anyone more arousing or beautiful in his entire life. Jared met his gaze, but started to cover himself after an uncertain moment, transferring his scrutiny once more to the nearest camera. Jensen couldn’t stand it.

He crawled over the boy’s body, sliding their groins together with only the thin cotton of his pants between them. The friction was torturously erotic. He lowered his chest gingerly and rubbed against Jared’s, marking the boy as his. He brushed his lips against Jared’s ear and murmured, “It’s just us here. There’s no one else.”

Jared nodded against his cheek and Jensen felt the boy trying to scent him. “All I smell,” he said after a minute, “is the sharp bite of the pines.” Taking another breath, he added, “And the burning of autumn leaves.” He cupped Jensen’s face and kissed him again, slow and sweet. “It’s just us here,” he parroted.

With barely any light left, Jensen let his gaze drop to Jared’s cock. Pre-come oozed from the angry head, leaving sticky trails along Jared’s toned stomach. The alpha was overcome with the urge to taste the boy and slithered back down Jared’s lean body. In a single motion, he swallowed down the omega’s length until he felt the mushroom head hit the back of his throat. Jared gasped and bowed his back off the mat completely. Stealing a glance through his thick eyelashes, Jensen admired the boy’s elegant, swan-like neck. But the taste that exploded in his mouth distracted him from anything else. Jared tasted like juicy berries ripened in the summer sun. He had to clutch madly at his own cock to keep his knot from inflating.

Pulling off after a minute, Jensen lifted his head to look at the omega. A string of saliva mixed with pre-come connected his lips to the head of Jared’s cock. The boy had raised his head and was staring at Jensen with an almost pained expression furrowing his brow. Jensen surged back up and kissed him hard. Jared moaned, opening his mouth and tasting himself for what the alpha was certain was the first time. Jared clawed frantically at Jensen’s broad shoulders while his slim hips ground against his own insistently.

“Jensen,” he gasped.

“Yes?” the alpha replied.

Jared continued to rut against Jensen and babble his name. Jensen understood that Jared didn’t know how to ask for what he needed, what only Jensen could give him.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered in the boy’s ear. “I’ve got you now.”

In one fluid motion, Jensen rolled Jared over onto his stomach. The boy twisted his head to the side, hair lank against his forehead and begged Jensen with his eyes for that thing he couldn’t name.

“I’ve got you,” Jensen reassured him before scooting back and practically ripping the pants off his body, removing that last barrier he had needed to maintain control of his wolf.

“Please,” Jared whimpered, rubbing his hips uselessly against the mat, desperately seeking friction.

Jensen nudged Jared’s legs apart and kneeled between them. He placed his strong hands on the prominent wings of Jared’s shoulder blades before firmly working them down until his thumbs rested in the dimples above Jared’s perfect ass. In the last of the artificial dusk, Jensen saw the shiny slick that seeped out and trailed down the insides of the omega’s thighs. He dipped down and breathed in, scowling at the lingering scent of metal and human he discovered there. His wolf howled at the defilement and wanted to remove all trace of it. Jensen gripped the boy’s hips and tugged him until Jared’s knees were propping his backside up while his torso and arms still rested on the mat.

“W-what?” Jared whimpered, twisting his head as he tried to look up at the alpha.

Jensen didn’t reply, instead slipping his hands down to cup the firm globes of the boy’s ass. He pulled them apart slightly, revealing the most intimate part of Jared to his reverent gaze. Nestled there like a pink rosebud, the furled muscle of the omega’s hole glistened with the slick Jared’s body had produced. Unable to help himself, Jensen lapped once at the hidden muscle. Jared writhed and thrashed under his hands, but Jensen didn’t stop there. Gently, he tugged at the rim and managed to slip his thumbs in without resistance and opened Jared up enough that he could easily dart his tongue inside.

Jensen groaned as he tasted more of that summer sweetness that was just Jared. He couldn’t get enough and licked frantically at the omega’s hole, stabbing in and out with his tongue while Jared cried out and moaned the alpha’s name repeatedly. When he was satisfied there was no longer a trace of the humans left, he settled back on his haunches and took stock of his omega.

His.

Jared had flung his arms wide, fisting what he could of the mat underneath them. His whole body shone with sweat and he was shivering with desire. Jensen could smell it on him and he knew he couldn’t hold back his wolf any longer. It screamed inside him to claim and mate, but Jensen had to be certain.

“Jared,” and he was surprised at how ragged his voice sounded to himself, like he hadn’t spoken in weeks, “are you sure?”

The omega groaned and dragged his face against the mat until one eye was visible to the alpha. “What?” he rasped.

“Do you want this?” Jensen asked again, only sounding slightly better than he had before.

Jared moved his head back and forth against the scratchy material of their bed and pushed himself up to his arms and knees. “I don’t want this,” he croaked and Jensen grew rigid, trying to pull back until Jared reached behind him blindly and grabbed the alpha’s flank. The boy twisted his head to look over his shoulder and catch Jensen’s eye. “I want _you_.” That was all Jensen needed to hear.

Not knowing how he could have remembered the ancient vows, caught up as he was in the moment, he invoked them solemnly nonetheless. “Submit, so that I might give myself to you, body and soul."

Jared dropped his head and shoulders back down in a posture of consent and trust. Jensen seized the boy’s hips and slid inside the omega in a single, slow push, no guidance needed. Like a hot knife through butter, Jensen’s thick cock breached Jared without pain, the omega utterly ready to accept him. He barely felt his balls slap against Jared’s before he let go and his knot began to swell in the furnace that was _HotTightSoGood_. The heat from the boy’s channel stole his breath away. Needing to be deeper, Jensen circled his arms around Jared’s waist and hoisted the omega up against his chest. Jensen sank back onto his haunches and nearly howled in pleasure as Jared’s rim sheathed his knot completely. The boy’s head flopped against his left shoulder and he scrabbled with his arms thrown back to touch Jensen’s face.

With a swivel of his hips, Jensen rubbed his now swollen knot against that special place inside Jared and the omega cried out, “Alpha!” It was the only warning Jensen had before Jared’s orgasm burst from him, splattering his stomach and chest with ropes of come. And then his body clamped down on Jensen with iron strength and Jensen was done, no matter how much he wanted to make it last.

He surged up with his hips as he felt himself begin to empty inside of Jared, marking him forever as his. He slipped his left arm higher on the boy’s chest and hooked his right under Jared’s to grip his right shoulder. He sank his teeth without hesitation into the flesh where neck met shoulder, below the hated collar, claiming Jared as his mate for life. Jared wailed and another orgasm was wrung out of him, while Jensen’s come hadn’t begun to slow yet.

He quivered in Jensen’s hold, arms falling uselessly to his sides in utter exhaustion, overwhelmed. As the alpha continued to suck and lap at the mating bite, he carefully guided them back down to the bare bedding, curling around his limp mate as everything grew hazy in a peaceful sense of rightness. The lights snuffed out.

 

 

It was fairly quiet in the observation room, but awkwardly so. All five scientists and the two guards had gathered around the multiple monitors scattered throughout the room to observe the long-awaited mating of the Weres as soon as the word got out that they had started. Jackson was looking decidedly hot under the collar, Mitch observed and had to chuckle to himself. The kid had a healthy libido and he couldn’t deny the Weres had put on a pretty good show.

He was simply relieved they hadn't had to intervene. Mitch was sure the breeding would have a better chance of success without their involvement. He wasn’t so certain that Mark thought the same way. He had a sneaking suspicion his second-in-command was just itching for a little “hands on” interaction with the omega, though he couldn’t understand that compulsion all. Still, he supposed, after all the time they had been cooped up, he could probably let Mark slip in some one-on-one time with the Were and claim some sort of research excuse for it. Or erase the tape.

“God, this is better than the Discovery channel,” another whispered to the colleague next to him. “How long can they go at it?”

“Well,” Jackson interjected, “the omega said he was eighteen and the alpha’s driver’s license listed him as turning thirty this month. They’re both in their prime…bet they can go for hours.”

“What was that they said about Gaia?” Franklin asked, clearly uncomfortable with the current discussion. Mitch wondered if that was because of what they had witnessed or because she was the only woman in the group.

“Gaia was the Greek goddess of the earth,” he explained. “And Luna was the Roman goddess of the moon.” He lamented, not for the first time, at the narrow scope of college educations these days. How could they not require a few classics studies to broaden the horizons of young minds, he wondered, even for those dedicated to the scientific fields?

“So,” she continued as she turned away from the monitor, probably glad of the excuse, “the Weres have a belief system based on the ancient deities from our past? Should we make some notes and further inquiries on this?”

Mitch sighed. He had no desire to dwell on any religious leanings the Weres may or may not have incorporated. There was no reason to try and equate them to humans any more than necessary. They were here for one purpose and one alone. The fate of the human race depended on it. He wouldn’t be swayed from his course.

“You can make a notation of the reference, but let’s not drift off on any tangents here, Franklin. Keep your eye on the ball,” he chastised her. The young woman blew out a breath that ruffled her blonde bangs and swiveled back around to her monitor. Glancing over her shoulder, Mitch could see by the eerie green glow of the night vision feature that the Weres were beginning another round of mating.

He debated about lingering to continue his observations firsthand or heading back to his office to start his next round of official reports for Director Heyerdahl when he noticed Mark grabbing a pair of night vision goggles and slipping out of the room. He caught up with the blond in the dimmed hallway easily enough.

“What are you planning, Mark?” he demanded of his subordinate.

“Geez, Mitch, after five months of this shit, I think I’m entitled to a ringside seat, don’t you?” the younger man nearly whined. “I’m bored.”

Mitch pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long breath. He really couldn’t see the harm and said as much. “Keep quiet and don’t disturb them,” he warned.

“Yes,” he smirked gleefully and clapped Mitch on the shoulder before leaving.

“And don’t get too close,” he shouted after Mark’s retreating form.

 

 

Jensen wasn’t sure what had roused him. Spooned up behind Jared, they were still tied from their second mating. Jensen rubbed his nose through the sweaty, baby-fine hairs at the nape of the boy’s neck, carefully avoiding contact with his collar. Jared slept on, worn out from their vigorous activities, cradled in his alpha’s protective arms.

Again, there was the thrum of danger and Jensen groggily lifted his head slightly to scan the room. Along the back wall, Mark stood, watching them silently. Jensen let out a low growl and proceeded to cover his mate with as much of his body as he could before he fell back to sleep.

It would only be much later, once the fog of mating had cleared, that Jensen would realize he had seen Mark.

Clearly.

In the dark.


	9. Chapter 9

 

Mitch stretched out on the couch in his office, crossing his legs at the ankles. He’d spent the last hour mostly staring at his computer monitor, and now found himself desperately trying to collect his thoughts. After he’d left the observation room, he’d been more than eager to begin typing up the first of what he suspected would a lengthy series of reports regarding Were mating behavior, not to mention pre-mating biological changes noted in the omega. But he had found an email from Director Heyerdahl waiting that had derailed him.

Unlike the last few communications from the head of FEMA demanding updates and results concerning Project Crèche, his latest had been more disturbing news about the diminishing births worldwide. Mitch wasn’t sure how the various governments were managing to coordinate information and still keep the general populace in the dark. It was, perhaps, a testament to how truly frightening the situation was becoming that everyone could get along and play nicely with one another for a change. In fact, through joint efforts, most of the world’s major powers had also focused on potential causes for what could only be described as a growing pandemic.

Mitch had glanced through the suggested theories briefly. While some seemed more outrageous than others, there was a common thread running through them all. Whatever was happening was universal and that implied that if there was an agent of transmission – if this were a disease – then it was something everyone on the planet had eventual contact with for its effects to be so global. The usual suspects were listed, such as possible airborne transmitters, but water hadn’t been ruled out, nor had major food crops like wheat, corn and rice. Mitch skimmed through the rest, not really interested in the vague suppositions, merely noting that most did not believe what was happening was an act of terrorism, because it was too widespread and no one had stepped forward to claim credit. He paused as he neared the end of the missive.

The director had passed along an additional twist to the already dire situation. Apparently, testing had begun (and Mitch had no desire to imagine how that had been conducted) on extremely young and newborn girls to check for fertility. Typically, a female started with roughly six to seven million oocytes residing in the fluid filled follicles within their ovaries. Only about two million of those immature eggs would remain upon birth, the rest having wasted away within the fetus. But FEMA’s latest findings were showing that _all_ of the oocytes in their test subjects had been reabsorbed. There was no guarantee, however, if they had even been there in the first place. All that was certain was that they were completely absent. Director Heyerdahl had mentioned the need to expand studies to include in utero sampling and that’s when Mitch had closed out the email. He glanced at his daughter’s photo – his only touchstone in his sterile environment – and couldn’t even imagine faceless, medical personnel violating her like that when she had been pregnant.

He had snatched up his iPad, unwilling to disconnect completely, and paced his office before flopping down on the leather monstrosity that was his one indulgence in the bleak setting. He adjusted a pillow and then loosened his tie, mulling over Heyerdahl’s words, all the while letting the smell of the treated hide soothe him. Leather and whiskey and Marlboro cigarettes were the scents he associated with the bear hugs his long-dead father used to envelop him with. He let the iPad flop on his belly as he rubbed the space between his brows, as though he could smooth away all of his problems with the repetitive motion.

Maybe it wasn’t terrorism, but the powers that be hadn’t yet ruled out an individual, or group of individuals, who simply wanted to create the perfect doomsday scenario. In fact, Mitch couldn’t think of a more painful one – the human race watching itself become extinct and unable to stop it. And, the more he thought about it, the more Mitch began to wonder if it was only humans who had been infected. The Weres were obviously extremely similar in most physiological respects, minus the male omegas and the alpha knots. As far as he knew, omegas and betas were capable of reproduction, but FEMA had no known documentation on their birthrates, so there was no way of knowing if they’d been affected by whatever this was either. Sure, he had witnessed firsthand tonight that all the “parts” had worked and it certainly appeared as though the mating was successful, but until they were able to check the omega, there was no way to guarantee he’d actually been bred. And if he had, there was still no way, other than time, to be sure he would carry his offspring to term. Julia hadn’t. Twice.

And if Project Crèche fell through? What in God’s name would they do then?

Mitch let out a bitter chuckle at that thought. God, apparently, had left the building some time ago. There was no way He would have had any part in the slow genocide of the human race. And then his thoughts drifted from God to the deities mentioned by the alpha. Almost unconsciously, he propped his iPad back up and began Googling the names. Of course, he already knew the basic mythos regarding the two, but, for some reason, the name “Gaia” stuck in his head.

Sure enough, fourth hit on Google took him to a Wikipedia page on the Gaia Hypothesis. That was why Gaia had sounded strangely familiar to him. The Gaia Hypothesis was a theory formulated by a chemist named James Lovelock almost half a century ago. His theory, which Mitch had a vague recollection of, had been dismissed as the worst kind of pseudoscience when he’d first publicly proposed it back in the 70s, despite incorporating ideas from microbiologist Lynn Margulis. Hell, even the name wasn’t his. The Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding, his friend and neighbor at the time, had suggested it to him.

At its heart, from what Mitch could recall, the Gaia Hypothesis proposed that earth itself was a living organism. Lovelock sidestepped the concept of natural selection and evolution by arguing that those organisms that improved the general environment thrived compared to those that didn’t. Put simply, if you were good to Mother Earth, she was good to you. There were other components to the theory, but Mitch couldn’t remember what they were. At the time it went public, Mitch, beginning his university studies, had dismissed it as a bunch of hippy, feel-good philosophy. So had a lot of his peers. Skimming over the page, he noticed the Geographical Society of London had given Lovelock their highest award in 2006, mostly because of his work on the Gaia Hypothesis. Maybe times had changed.

Mitch huffed and turned to look at the clock mounted by his door. Nearly 4 AM. He knew there was no way he would be getting to sleep anytime soon. Not with what they had planned in the next few hours. He glanced back at his iPad, sighed, and tapped on a special application FEMA had provided him with. It was a direct link to their extensive library and he typed in Lovelock’s name. Within seconds, he was downloading the chemist’s most recent incarnation of his theory, _Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth_. What the hell. He had about four hours to kill.

*****                                                                                                       

Two hours later, Mitch lowered his iPad to the floor. As he had suspected, Lovelock’s musings had been metascience at best, blending myth with actual scientific disciplines. Those less kind labeled it teleological and that his theory was a metaphor and not a mechanism. Even Lovelock himself admitted by naming his hypothesis after a Greek goddess, many people chose to interpret his ideas as some type of neo-Pagan religion and not science at all. Furthering that perception was the often simplistic ways he laid out his explanations and theorems, eschewing language remotely complex in favor of a simpler narrative. And Mitch wanted to throw his lot in with the “respectable” scientists as well. But he liked to consider himself a true researcher and began to play Devil’s advocate with some of the arguments, even if a small portion of his brain realized he’d only considered the game after no sleep and in the odd hours of 5 and 6 AM, when nothing ever seemed quite real. Especially in this hole.

Most scientists agreed that to meet the baseline definition of a life-form, an organism had to be able to replicate, pass on genetic information and be subject to natural selection. A common argument against Gaia was that the planet was no one’s child and had produced no offspring. Straightforward enough on the surface, but Mitch mused that given the current situation with the human population, one could toss out the requirement of replicating. His daughter was no less a living thing, despite her inability to bear children, than a nudibranch squirming around in a brackish tide pool. And as for the earth not being anyone’s child, he could just as easily propose that the earth had formed from something. Perhaps not as delineated as a male and female, but multiple bits of matter converged to form the planet. And it had evolved considerably over the roughly four and a half billion years since it was created, as opposed to thinking it was some static rock floating in space.

Another major argument against Gaia as an entity was that it was not subject to natural selection. He could again debate against that. The Chicxulub crater was formed roughly sixty six million years ago and most scientists concurred that the asteroid collision that created the crater was responsible for the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that wiped out nearly three quarters of all animal and plant life, including all non-avian dinosaurs. The earth dramatically changed after that, and, from a philosophical standpoint, Mitch could argue that change as the by-product of surviving an act of potential natural selection.

Mitch plucked off his glasses and tucked them in the breast pocket of his shirt and threw an arm exhaustedly over his eyes. But he couldn’t find any rest. Lovelock’s co-author had stated in one of the book’s last chapters that “each species, to a greater or lesser degree, modifies its environment to optimize its reproduction rate” with Gaia being the sum total of all the actions. Lovelock interpreted that to mean that whatever humans did to the planet and the other organisms living on the earth, humans would still be drawn into Gaia’s process of regulation. And playing again and again in his head was the quote Lovelock had included in his revised preface of the book. The then Czech president Václav Havel, when accepting the Liberty Award from the United State in1994, mentioned the Gaia Hypothesis in his acceptance speech. He had said that “our destiny is not dependent merely on what we do for ourselves but also on what we do for Gaia as a whole. If we endanger her, she will dispense with us in the interests of a higher value – life itself”.

Shifting around to get more comfortable, Mitch’s sleep-deprived brain kept steamrolling forward. What if Gaia _was_ alive? What were humans to her? There were a multitude of bacteria and fungi that currently lived quite happily on the human skin. Antimicrobial peptides – host defense peptides – normally kept them in check when the immune system was healthy. So what would Gaia do to regulate bacterial humans on her skin? What if she felt humans had become cancerous? He mulled over the items that had stuck out from Heyerdahl’s email. Air was fairly easy to dismiss. Mitch felt it was too encompassing an environmental factor to tamper with. There was too great a chance affecting the other organisms living on her skin that were still beneficial. The same could be said about water. 6 AM logic dictated he moved on to food. Animal proteins could probably be eliminated, because, again, it relied on tampering with another, complex organism. Something simpler. Perhaps crops. Wheat was an important one, but not completely universal. And then the thought struck him so suddenly, he sat up fast enough to give himself a wicked head rush.

Corn.

Corn was literally in almost everything. His mind raced at the implications. It was eaten, fed to food-source animals like cattle, pigs and chicken. Some farmers were even getting domesticated salmon to eat it. A derivative of corn was used as a spray on vegetables before they were displayed on grocers’ shelves. Vitamin C tablets mostly came from corn. It was commonly used on the coatings of a variety of pharmaceuticals, in drywall and paving stones. Some adhesives, perfumes and make-up used it, not to mention batteries, gasoline, insecticides, shampoo and toothpaste. And, most disturbingly, in the lubricant of some condoms, crayons, baby foods and diapers. Mitch realized he’d barely scratched the surface. It would be impossible for someone to avoid all contact with the crop, no matter where they lived.

And corn was arguably the most completely domesticated of all field crops. Its perpetuation for centuries had depended wholly on the care of man. It could no longer exist as a wild plant in its present form; man had modified it so much that it no longer resembled its ancestor in the slightest. If corn was the culprit, it would disappear one season after man did, never to be seen again.

Mitch dropped his head into his hands, leaning his elbows on his knees. His mind was firing off figures and statistics at a dizzying rate. Could this really be something? Was it any more or less far-fetched than some of the theories postulated by his contemporaries in the email? He abruptly rose to his feet and was halfway to his computer when he stopped in his tracks and contemplated exactly how he would word a reply to his superior.

“Hey, Heyerdahl. Corn’s the answer. Obviously, Mother Earth has decided we’re a symbiotic organism that’s been demoted from mutual to parasitic and she’s decided to off us with the one food that will become extinct the moment we do. How did I come up with this you ask?” he giggled almost drunkenly. “Well, after watching two men have sex for hours and hoping one was getting knocked up, I decided, after having stayed awake for nearly fifty hours straight that reading some Kumbaya drivel would be a great way to pass the time. All in the safety and comfort of my subterranean bunker, of course, trying to find a cure for the end of the human race.” And Mitch couldn’t help himself; he started to laugh.

He laughed so hard that he had to bend over and grab his knees. And it was like this that Mark found him.

“Wanna let me in on the joke, boss man?” he asked after Mitch hadn’t acknowledged his rapping on the doorframe.

Mitch stood up, wiped at his eyes and extracted his glasses from his shirt pocket. By the time he re-seated them, he had managed to regain a modicum of composure. “You know, I honestly don’t think you’d find it all that funny. In fact, I think if I had a few more hours of sleep, even I wouldn’t find it all that amusing.”

Mark pursed his lips, but didn’t press the issue. “If you say so,” he replied and if Mitch didn’t know the man so well, he’d almost think there was a hint of concern in his voice. “You wanted me to let you know as soon as those two stopped doing it for more than a few hours.”

Mitch nodded. Checking the time, he dragged his hand through his graying goatee. “Perfect timing,” he told the younger man, clapping his hands together. “Let’s get everything set up.”

Mark nodded and ducked out of the room. Mitch briefly contemplated at least making a few, brief notes on his thoughts, feeling that some aspects were already fraying like a strange dream, but ultimately decided against it. He had more pressing matters to deal with. He could indulge in his flights of fancy later.

 

 

Jensen blinked sleepily, unwilling to completely let go of the warm contentment that had soaked in bone-deep like sunshine on an August day. All around him was the sweet scent of his mate and it was even stronger than the day before. Caressing the pliant body of the sleeping omega, running his hands along the smooth skin and lean muscles, Jensen allowed himself one minute to forget about everything but Jared. He mouthed around the boy’s ear and found himself scooting closer. His cock, which nestled snugly in the cleft of Jared’s firm ass, valiantly tried to rise, although the alpha suspected it was all in vain. Smacking his lips together, he was parched and after all the fluids they had lost, he was pretty sure they were both skirting some serious dehydration issues.

Jared breathed deeply and shuffled in Jensen’s arms until he was facing the alpha, with his head tucked up alongside Jensen’s and his arms curled against him. The alpha smiled and kissed the boy’s forehead as curious fingers started to prod against his chest. He closed his eyes as the tentative touches grew bolder and Jared’s thumbs began to rub back and forth over Jensen’s hardening nipples. Repressing a shudder, Jensen used his right hand to trap Jared’s left in place. The omega opened his eyes slowly and offered Jensen a lazy grin.

“Mornin’, sweetheart,” the alpha drawled before lightly dragging his lips across Jared’s. “My mate,” he added in a hushed tone.

Jared’s grin melted into something indefinably softer and he whispered, “Mate.” He sounded almost awed and humble.

Jensen was overwhelmed by the desire to claim his mate again. The need pulsed inside of him with every heartbeat, but they no longer had the false comfort of darkness on their side. And, staring at Jared, he saw that the omega looked tired; content, but tired. The five months of captivity had taken so much out of him, that even their mating had obviously been a strain on his system. He reined in his wolf, placing the health and safety of the boy he had grown to love before everything else. He slid his hand up from his chest to Jared’s jaw and tilted it gently so that he could place another innocent kiss on the boy’s soft, pink lips.

When he pulled away, he murmured, “Love you.”

Jared’s sleepy eyes grew wide and then he smiled so happily, two dimples appeared. Jensen’s breath caught momentarily as he vividly recalled seeing a hint of those same indentations hidden under the dirt of a much younger Jared. Jensen couldn’t deny how right everything settled between them.

“I love you, too,” he replied shyly. Jensen delicately brushed some of the dark hair from the omega’s face, trailing his callused fingers along Jared’s cheek and realizing how much cooler his skin was. He swallowed hard, joy and fear equally warring inside of him. Jared’s heat coming to an end so soon could only mean one thing. He wondered if Jared could sense it as well.

Unsure of what he was going to say, Jensen began, “Jared –” but stopped when he felt someone watching. It was the same twinge of danger he’d experienced hours earlier with Mark. Turning to look over his shoulder, two scientists in full gear were standing by the airlock. Wordlessly, one entered as usual with a tray while the other stood back. When the inner door opened, Jensen stood up, proud and unashamed in his nakedness, and collected the water, but noticed an absence of food. That was another change in routine and Jensen’s hackles rose.

“What? No bacon and eggs this morning?” he quipped. When neither scientist responded, he backed up to Jared and knelt beside him. After setting the bottles down, Jensen helped Jared up and handed him one, frowning when he saw how the omega’s hand shook. He didn’t hesitate to wrap his own around Jared’s and guide the bottle to his lips. Jared took several, long gulps and nodded to Jensen gratefully. The water seemed to perk him up slightly. He continued to drink, unaided, as Jensen reached for his own.

“We weren’t sure that you would be hungry after…last night,” came the deeper, not-Mark voice. There might have been embarrassment in the tone. Jensen simmered with rage that something so sacred had been defiled by the humans’ presence, however removed. Except for Mark, of course, who had to witness it in person. Jensen was sure he could still smell the man and he took a long pull of the water to quench both his thirst and his anger, before the full import that he’d actually seen Mark hit him. He lowered the bottle slowly, letting that knowledge sink in, trying to calm his racing thoughts. But he was finding it hard to concentrate. Something didn’t taste right and just as Jensen was about to take a sniff of the bottle’s contents, the scientist spoke again.

“We’ll get you both something right away.”

“You do that,” Jensen snapped and stepped closer to the airlock again, a silent sentry between them and his boy.

As Jensen watched one of the two humans leave the room, he started to grow strangely light-headed. Loath to shift his eyes from the remaining human, he held his spot resolutely, protecting his mate as best he could. That was, until he heard the crinkle of Jared’s water bottle hitting the mat. He whipped around, swaying slightly with the movement, in time to watch his omega sag back onto the bedding completely insensate. Jared’s lips parted laxly and his hair tumbled across his closed eyes. What little water that was left in his bottle puddled uselessly on the floor.

Jensen let out a low whine of worry and tried to reach his mate’s side, but he only managed a handful of steps before his legs became liquid and he toppled to the ground. With his vision blurring, he still tried to crawl over to Jared but, with each step, he grew weaker and more boneless. As though he had cotton stuffed in his ears, he could make out the muffled words of someone nearby, but didn’t have the strength to do more than roll to his side.

Two hazmat-suited bodies bustled past him, wheeling in a gurney. With his eyes at half-mast, Jensen weakly slung out a hand, scrabbling at the wheels that rolled by to no avail. He was forced to watch them hoist up the limp body of his omega – _his mate_ – and swing him thoughtlessly onto the stretcher. They efficiently strapped him down, cinching what could only be silver bindings tight across his thin chest and thighs and trundled him out of the cage. Jensen whined again and dragged his deadening body after them, only to see Mark standing on the other side of the cage wall while Jared was wheeled out of Jensen’s sight.

“We’ll take it from here, mutt,” Mark smirked. He tugged up his pant legs and squatted closer to Jensen’s level. The alpha growled and, even as his vision wavered, crawled the rest of the distance that separated him from the filthy human.

“After all that fucking, the kid should be knocked up for sure. I have to admit that I was a little jealous watching the way you rammed yourself into his tight, little hole. And the way he took it, like a Grade A slut,” Mark whistled.

Jensen’s nails scratched against the floor and he hissed at the foul words the human was spewing about his mate.

“Of course,” Mark pondered and picked at his chin, “if you didn’t seal the deal, one of us might have to step up and take one for the team. Think I’m man enough?” he snickered.

Jensen wanted to roar, wanted to rend and tear and smear himself in Mark’s blood. But whatever was in the water was tugging him down mercilessly, making his vision tunnel. Black stole in from all sides.

“Wonder what it would be like to slam into that wet hole and have it all hot and snug around me?”

Jensen slapped out a hand and clawed at the wall that separated them. “He’d never allow it,” Jensen rasped.

“Not much he could do about it with that collar on,” Mark shrugged. “Hell, it’d probably be even sweeter with a few jolts of electricity. Get him to clench real tight then. Make him my little bitch in every sense of the word. What do think?” And then he winked at the alpha.

“I think,” Jensen slurred, fighting to get the words out with his thick tongue, “you’re dead. You just don’t know it yet.”

Mark grinned brightly and rose smoothly to his feet. The last thing Jensen saw was his retreating back and the last thing he heard was Mark’s orders to some person unseen.

“Hose him and that cage down. It fuckin’ reeks in there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a fairly comprehensive, but by no means complete, list of where and in what products corn can be found in [here](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwivp-HDncvXAhVU5GMKHYB3At4QFggoMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fhealthhabits.files.wordpress.com%2F2009%2F01%2Fproducts-that-use-corn.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1nT6A3pMEWmYbz6dZMpTh1) .


	10. Chapter 10

Mitch paced the length of the lab, the swish of his white Biosafety Level 3 suit the only sound beyond the subtle drone of the ventilation system. Unlike other areas of the bunker, this room had fresh air constantly pumped in and then filtered out, a requirement to meet BSL 3 standards. Too bad the respirator he wore prevented him from truly enjoying it. He was growing impatient, waiting on Mark, excited and dreading what was going to happen next. He spared a quick glance at the sedated omega, naked and strapped to the gurney. What had he called the lab to the other Were? A “really white room”? Looking around, he realized it was actually a fairly apt description. 

The examination lab was, besides the chamber that housed the Were habitat, the largest single room in the bunker. Approximately one hundred feet long and fifty wide, it was completely white from floor to ceiling. The perimeter of the ceiling was circled with row after row of fluorescent lights, interspersed with vents and the ubiquitous surveillance cameras. There were a variety of machines and equipment that lined the walls, from modified autopsy/exam tables to autoclaves to ductless fume hoods. A few strategically placed drains interrupted the vast expanse of unmarred flooring, so shiny it almost looked like ice. The only bit of color at all was the small collection of coiled air hoses that dangled from the ceiling. Like wilted streamers left over from a party long past, they hung in seeming disarray. Jackson, obviously impatient as well, pulled on one of the red hoses to watch it bob up and down and Mitch suddenly flashed back to a memory of his daughter, all of five years old at the time, tugging on the cord for the old, Trimline phone they had mounted on their kitchen wall. His reaction now was the same as then.

“Quit it,” he snapped. “It’s not a toy.”

Jackson immediately let go. The hose sprang back up, the metal nozzle clacking against the faceplate of his suit accusingly. “Sorry,” he murmured as he clasped his hands behind his back, not trusting himself not to fiddle with something else.

It was hard to glare at someone through the Tyvek hood that lay over the BSL 3 suit, making everyone look slightly like demented beekeepers, but Mitch still managed. The rest of the staff, minus the guards who didn’t have clearance for the secure lab, stood stock still. Even Evans, the youngest in the group, managed to curtail his Darth Vader jokes. The personal respirators, which attached to the back of the hoods and were strapped to the small of the back, didn’t actually distort their voices, but the redhead liked to pretend they did. Or that he was a member of NASA landing on the moon. They were all going a little stir crazy after five months.

Before anyone had the chance to do something further to set Mitch off, the distinctive sucking of the inner vacuum-sealed door broke the unease. Mark marched in quickly, dressed in the same white gear as everyone else, although he had apparently decided to be a trendsetter by donning blue gloves instead of white.

“Sorry,” he apologized breathlessly to Mitch.

“What took so long?” Mitch asked.

“The alpha took longer to go down,” he replied. “I wanted to stay until he was out.” There was something off in Mark’s tone.

“Did he drink as much as the omega?” Mitch queried, mentally rechecking dosages in his head.

Mark rubbed his hands together. “No. He noticed the omega losing consciousness and dropped his bottle before he’d consumed all of it.”

Mitch nodded and raised his hands, palms angled upwards in a “well, there you go” kind of gesture. It didn’t seem to placate the younger man, so Mitch pushed him for more. “Do you have some concerns about dosages?”

Mark sidled closer. “Maybe. But it’s more than that. I mean, why are we even bothering to keep him around any longer?” he asked in a low voice, nodding in the direction of the omega. “Isn’t he a bit redundant now? We got what we needed from him.”

Mitch exhaled loudly. “Look, we’re not even sure it _was_ successful yet. Don’t go counting your chickens and all that. And if the omega has been bred, that’s more than enough reason to hang onto the alpha. It means we’ve got a successful breeding pair,” he replied as though he was stating the obvious.

Mark took a deep breath, but before he could add anything, Mitch continued on. “I’m not saying we won’t want to collect other alphas to mix up the genetic testing at some point soon, just like we’re going to have to bag more omegas, but there’s no need to retire the one we have just yet.”

“You’re right, of course,” Mark agreed, although his acquiescence didn’t ring quite true. Mitch was intrigued by Mark’s relatively sudden desire to get rid of the alpha, but it wasn’t the time to pursue it. Maybe later, over a shared drink, he could figure out the younger man’s real motivations. If the omega did turn out to be carrying, he was certain they would all be drinking tonight.

“Thanks for waiting,” Mark added. “Time to saddle up?” he joked. Evans and Jackson sniggered at that. They had laughed before at the picture the omega made in stirrups like six year olds giggled at fart jokes.

“Rather than do anything too invasive yet, let’s get an MRI first,” Mitch ordered. “Franklin, give Mark a hand setting it up.”

“Yes, sir,” she agreed crisply.

Mark and Franklin wheeled the omega into the only room attached to the lab. The single piece of equipment in the cordoned off section was a 1.5 Tesla wide short bore magnetic resonance imaging machine. The actual scanner was about half the size of conventional MRIs, but was ideal for chest and abdominal scans, which was really all they were interested in.

Mitch remained in the doorway while the two pushed the gurney parallel to the patient table, with the subject’s feet pointing towards the scanner itself. As Mark reached for the straps, Franklin hesitated. “Should we adjust his sedation before we undo him?” she called back to Mitch. Her voice only shook once, fingers hovering above the silver bindings.

Mark, standing by the omega’s head, made a fist and ground his knuckles into the creature’s thin chest, directly above the sternum, hard enough to bruise. The Were remained still. He then dug his thumb into the indentation above the omega’s right eye, near its nose. Nothing. He slid his left hand down and behind its jaw under the ear and pressed hard. Not so much as a whimper. He dropped his hand farther, coming to rest above the nasty-looking bite mark. “And now for the Vulcan neck pinch,” he smirked and squeezed hard enough to force some blood from the wound.

“Mark,” the older scientist dragged out his name. He was beginning to feel more like a teacher policing a playground than the head of an elite, research team specializing in gestational studies.

“Pain is a legitimate way to test the level of unconsciousness in a subject.” He shrugged his shoulder non-repentantly as he subtly wiped the blood from his glove onto the Were’s arm. “The omega displayed no reaction to the four accepted methods of central stimulus.” Mitch couldn’t argue with that.

“Looks like you should be fine, Franklin” Mitch assured her, but glanced along the wall beside him. Next to the hands-free sink and eyewash, a tranq gun was mounted to the wall within easy reach. Precautions were always in place. “With the amount of sedatives in its system, the Were should remain unresponsive for about four hours. Go ahead and load him up.”

Mark began unbuckling the strap around the omega’s chest, while Franklin undid the one at his thighs. Even through the hood, Mitch saw the petite blonde wrinkle her nose in obvious distaste. The expression wasn’t lost on Mark, either. As he hooked his arms under the Were’s shoulders, he leaned forward and asked, “What’s the matter, Frankie?”

As she struggled to manipulate her arms under the omega’s thighs, she replied sotto voce, “He stinks.”

“Aw, that’s what sex with a man smells like. Something you’re unfamiliar with, I take it?” he purred.

Franklin grew red-faced, but whether that was from the exertion of moving deadweight or her embarrassment, Mitch wasn’t sure. While she couldn’t charge Mark with sexual harassment, since they’d all signed government non-disclosure agreements relating to everything that occurred in the bunker, Franklin could still become resentful, and Mitch needed her to be at the top of her game.

“Admit it, Mark. You’re the only one here who likes how it smells,” Mitch teased, hoping Franklin would appreciate turning the tables on the blond man. His subordinate gave him a strange look, before a sly grin took over his face as he plopped the omega’s head into the curved brace that would hold it in place during the scan.

“What can I say? I like it dirty,” he smirked.

“Eww,” Franklin squealed, but it was clear she was no longer mad at her colleague. Mitch rolled his eyes. He downgraded them to preschoolers.

After they had transferred the omega to the patient table, Franklin stepped on a pedal that raised the table level with the open bore of the scanner. Mark pulled the Were’s arms past its head, so that they dangled at an uncomfortable angle off the end of the table, giving the MRI an unobstructed view of its abdomen.

“What about the collar?” Franklin pointed out.

“Shouldn’t affect the scan as it’s not ferromagnetic,” Mitch dismissed.

“I know, sir, but can’t excessive heating become an issue with silver in closed loops beyond a certain diameter?” she reminded him. “Those problems pop up with silver-containing wound dressings during scans all the time.”

“Aw, feeling sorry for it?” Mark mocked her. “Knew you were a bleeding heart deep down inside where it counts.”

“Well, the omega’s got that nasty looking bite on its neck already,” she pointed out. “No need to aggravate it.”

“I appreciate your concern, Franklin. Since its head and shoulders will remain outside the scanner at all times, it shouldn’t be a problem,” Mitch reassured her. “And it’s not like the silver doesn’t burn already, so the omega probably wouldn’t even feel it if it did blister some.”

She shrugged as Mark hit the controls and the patient table slowly slid into the bore. “Be a shame to lose it to an infection or injury now that we’re so close.”

“Excellent point,” Mitch replied. It would be a waste of time and resources.

When only the omega’s head and the line of his shoulders were visible, Mark and Franklin left the room with Mitch. Mark leaned as close as he could get to Franklin, given their hoods, and snipped, “Brown nose.” Internally, Mitch wondered if there was anything lower on the pecking order than preschoolers.

“Close the door,” he instructed Mark and then moved to stand behind Evans, who was already seated at the computers stationed below the observation window. “Fire her up, Evans.”

The redhead eagerly began typing in commands as the multiple-monitor display came to life. The screens flickered as the MRI’s radio transmitter began to generate the electromagnetic field needed for imaging. And even with the steel door closed, the five scientists heard the distinctive beeping that accompanied a typical scan. As the gradient coils inside the machine expanded and contracted, they created a sound not unlike a muted fire alarm. Humans that underwent scans typically were given headphones to distract them and, in some cases, provide necessary hearing protection. The omega had nothing.

“Houston, we have lift-off,” Evans chirped. Jackson, standing to his left, slapped him on the back of his head, avoiding the seal where the respirator hose connected to the hood.

“Dork. Would you like some Tang with that?” he teased.

The scan took about forty minutes to complete, with each member of the scientific team riveted to the screens.

“Watching this is reminds me of when I used to have to wait for naked pictures of Anna Kournikova to download back when the Internet was brand, spankin’ new,” Mark drawled, breaking the tension. Mitch noted the nervous giggles but decided to let it go. They were literally watching the potential fate of humanity resolve itself on the HD screens in front of them.

“Is that…” Jackson breathed.

Mitch leaned closer as the image of the omega’s lower intestinal tract came into focus. Coming off of the colon was an organ roughly shaped like a human uterus. “Bring up the scan from its initial physical. I want a side-by-side comparison with this one right now,” he demanded in a clipped tone.

The image on the left flickered and was replaced with one from over five months prior. In it, there was a decent view of what they had all assumed was the appendix, jutting off from the cecum. Comparing the old scan with the new, Mitch could see that whatever that organ was had now expanded and almost entirely pinched itself off from the juncture of the small and large intestine. A brand new network of tissue and blood vessels had attached itself to the organ and anchored the newly-formed womb to the abdominal wall.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Mark exhaled.

“So when it went into heat, the increased body temperature might have been due to structural reformation,” Franklin conjectured.

Mitch agreed. “More than likely. These creatures can reshape bone, hair, tissue and muscle with ease. Apparently, they can hone that control down to individual organs, at least in the case of the omegas.”

“I wonder if they can do that with some of their other body parts?” Jackson speculated. “Imagine weaponizing some of this stuff, like their claws.”

“Easy does it, Wolverine,” Mitch corrected him and smirked at the surprised look of respect he garnered for his pop culture reference. “Right now, we’ve got something far more important to worry about. Zoom in on the womb and increase the magnification times ten, Evans.”

The contrasting image grew larger. When the womb filled the screen, two bean-sized shapes were visible along the edges of the interior of the organ. Those little, amorphous blobs possibly signified the salvation of the human race.

“Two of them? And they’re already visible?” Franklin breathed, sounding awed. “They usually aren’t this size in humans until the ninth week or so.”

“Gestation of larger canids ranges from sixty to seventy five days,” Mark interjected.

“And a human runs about two hundred and eighty,” Franklin continued. “So Weres might fall somewhere in the middle, given what we’re seeing here. So maybe five to six months.”

Mitch didn’t need to see the faces of his team to know that most were grimacing. He felt his own heart sink a bit as well. Six months was not nine months. And the longer he stared at the screen, the more complicated the connective tissue and blood vessels appeared, creating a tangled puzzle that he wasn’t sure could be unwoven. It would be so easy to give in to despair in that moment. He shook his head slightly. He was their leader and he wouldn’t shirk from the responsibility of his position. He needed to rally his troops.

“All right, Evans, you can shut down the scanner, but keep the images up.” The redhead nodded and his finger began dancing across the keyboard. The incessant beeping finally quieted and everyone seemed noticeably calmer after that. Mitch shot a quick look at the omega, whose arms still dangled limply from the table. He calculated they had another two hours at most before his sedation would begin to wear off and there was still a lot to get done. Of course, they could use additional tranquilizers on it, but Mitch wanted to limit their use especially now that they had confirmed viable fetuses. Mitch stood straighter; he had a team to mobilize.

“Listen up, everyone,” he began. The four scientists turned to face him. Mark crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall, head cocked. “We knew this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park when we signed up for this. But not only did we acquire a suitable pair, we are one step closer to reaching our goal. As of right now, we have concrete proof the Were’s womb is viable.”

“But look at all that tissue and the adjustments its circulatory system has already made to accommodate the womb,” Jackson pointed out, fingers tracing the screen. “There’s no way that could be successfully transplanted into a human male and remain functional.”

“First off, you don’t know that for certain. Think back just ten or fifteen years ago to the procedures we thought were impossible and have since accomplished. This is no different.” Mitch let his gaze sweep the collective. “And there’s nothing stopping us from trying to at least attempt a partial transplant to a woman either.”

Mark pushed himself away from the wall. “I thought that was off the table considering everything points to women,” and he paused to shoot a pointed look at Franklin, “as being the ones with the ‘inhospitable environments’ these days. As far as we know, all our boys,” and he gestured to his crotch, “are doing just fine. In fact, I thought that’s why the focus was on the male omegas in the first place, since we were hoping they would be a close enough match for transplant to human males.” Evans nodded along, while Franklin was rigid.

“Absolutely we were operating under the assumption that omegas would hopefully work with our anatomy and I still agree that any attempt at transplantation should be made with human males first,” Mitch agreed. “What we do know about the pandemic is that only women have been affected so far, so we do have to consider that something in their bodies is toxic to viable reproduction and why we passed on testing female omegas and betas at this juncture. We may have to revisit that somewhere down the road.

“But,” he continued, “I think the first thing we should consider here, now that we’ve gotten a good look at what’s going on inside the omega, is surrogacy.”

“What if the omega only carries for twenty four to twenty five weeks?” Franklin asked, voice strained. Mitch wondered if she felt insulted or hurt by Mark’s blunt statements of fact.

“Fetal viability is certainly a realistic concern, but statistics show that babies born after twenty three weeks have a fifty to seventy percent chance at survival.” Mitch reached up to rub at his chin and bumped the hood instead. “We have options. Antenatal corticosteroids can be administered to help lung development for preterm birth and we have a variety of tocolytics include terbutaline, magnesium sulfate, nifedipine, and indomethacin that can slow down labor. This is all workable,” he assured them.

“But we’re jumping the gun here. Let’s see how the Were’s pregnancy advances first. That way we’ll have a better idea of what our next steps should be. Jackson, help Mark get the omega out of the scanner,” he directed them. “I want to run the regular battery of test, minus the internal samples and exam for the moment. I’d like to avoid anything invasive for at least the next two to three weeks,” he warned, staring directly at Mark.

“This is a good thing, people,” Mitch impressed on them. “Today was huge, whether it feels like it or not and the first round of drinks in the canteen tonight is on me.” While this elicited a small murmur of excitement, no one noticed behind them that Jared had twitched his fingers.

Mark opened the door to the MRI room with Jackson at his heels. Evans turned his focus back to the computer as he transferred and collated the data, while Franklin headed over to one of the many supply cabinets scattered throughout the room. Mitch watched somewhat distractedly as the omega was transferred back onto the gurney. He was so lost in thought that he almost jumped when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

Twisting around, he realized Franklin had returned and was holding a 29-guage needle in a sterilized package. “Should I run an amniocentesis on the subject today?” she asked for permission.

“Let’s hold off on that for at least another two to three weeks,” Mitch replied. “The fetal development is fairly rapid, but I feel it’s too risky at this point despite what we might learn at this stage.”

“All right,” she said and lowered her eyes. Mitch had a feeling there was something else on her mind. He placed a hand on her back, above the respirator, and guided her to the side as the omega was wheeled by.

“Something you want to say, Franklin?” he urged her.

She was quiet for a minute, tracking the omega as the men hefted it onto one of the silver-laced exam tables. “Yes, sir,” she responded softly.

“Go ahead,” he prodded. Even through the mask, he saw that she was chewing on her lower lip.

“I know we have some frozen, fertilized embryos on site,” Franklin began as Mitch nodded along, “but I wanted to offer some of my eggs for when we start testing the surrogacy options.” She twisted her hands together and rushed on. “I know we have the hormones that I’d need to be injected with and any one of you could handle the egg extraction. I’m pretty sure I could get one of the others to donate some sperm. I-I would appreciate if you would take this under consideration, sir.” She finished by looking up into his eyes and Mitch saw a mixture of hope and desperation in those hazel depths. He saw his daughter.

Patting her on the shoulder, he told her, “I will seriously deliberate over the offer, Franklin. There are obviously pros and cons to using fresh versus frozen embryos that need to be weighed and, as a scientist, you know that. But I’m not ruling it out, okay?” She dropped her gaze at that. He ducked his head, trying to catch her eyes. “That’s not a ‘no’,” he added, patting her on the shoulder a second time. She smiled again. It was small and rueful.

“I appreciate you even considering it,” she thanked him.

“It’s an extremely generous offer,” he assured her. Franklin shuffled her feet, unsure of what to do next.

“Why don’t you finish up the exam on the omega now that it’s situated on the table,” he nudged her towards Mark and Jackson. “Tell Mark I’d like a word with him and Jackson can help Evans run a diagnostic on the MRI. I want all our equipment checked and recalibrated after every use going forward. We can’t afford to make any mistakes.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied firmly and headed over to the omega.

Mitch considered Franklin as she left. Wracking his brain, he thought he recalled her being in her early thirties. Not too bad an age for a possible donor. She still had a few years before concerns revolving around old eggs – things like Down’s syndrome – became an issue. Time enough for a full career before making any sacrifices for motherhood. He’d seen many women make this kind of a choice. Of course, that was the rub, wasn’t it? She didn’t have any more time. None of them did.

Mark sauntered over, breaking him from his reverie. “I know I saw it with my own eyes, but it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that that thing is actually carrying, you know?” Mark murmured.

Mitch swept the room and confirmed the other members of the team were suitably occupied. He let out a big breath. “I know _exactly_ what you mean. No matter how intellectually prepared you might be, having the evidence staring you in the face is another matter entirely.”

Mark moved closer, also apparently aware that Mitch wanted to keep their discussion as private as possible, given the circumstance. “That vascular system was a fucking nightmare,” he admitted quietly.

Again, Mitch tried to bring his hand to his face only to thump against the visor integrated in his hood. “I didn’t want to say much in front of the others, but I agree with you one hundred percent. I don’t think we have the capabilities to move that into a human and keep it viable.”

“Going to have to go with surrogacy,” Mark prompted. “And, potentially, hybridization.”

“That’s the last resort, Mark. Our primary goal is to preserve the _human_ race.” He poked the younger man in the chest for emphasis.

“I’m being realistic here, Mitch, and you know it,” Mark countered, raising his hands in a placating manner.

“I know,” Mitch replied, somewhat deflated. “I don’t have to like it, though.”

“No one said you had to,” the blond retorted.

Trying to lighten the mood, Mitch quipped, “But you would.” Making a quick check that no one was paying attention to them, he added, “You just want to get your dick in that, God knows why.”

Mark was quiet for about ten seconds and Mitch momentarily worried that he had somehow crossed a line with his colleague. Until Mark smirked, that is.

“Like I told Franklin,” he drawled. “I like it dirty.”

Mitch chuckled and slapped a hand against the younger man’s arm. “Can’t get dirtier than that. Practically bestiality,” he chuckled.

Mark’s smile grew. “I know. It’s like Everest. You gotta do it because it’s there,” he cackled.

Mitch shook his head from side to side. “Today was a big day and we are moving forward. Could you set something up in the canteen tonight? I’d like to acknowledge the milestone we hit with the troops. I think we all need it.”

The younger man cocked his head back, somewhat aghast. “Does the fearless leader actually want to par-tay?”

“Geez, Mark, even I know no one says that anymore. But, yes, I’d like to try to make things a little festive for everyone before we settle in for the next, long haul.” Mitch recognized that they all had at least five months ahead of them that was mostly going to be routine exams and waiting. And hoping.

“I’m your guy,” the blond assured him. “Leave everything to me.” With that, he pivoted and made his way to the exit. With a familiar whoosh, Mark was through the first door on his way out of the lab. Mitch was momentarily envious, dying to strip out of the hazmat suit as he felt a trickle of sweat wind its way down his spine, but he shook that off and walked over to Franklin.

She was carefully cleaning the wound on the omega’s neck, which showed no signs of healing. He wasn’t surprised. The silver collars not only seemed to keep the Weres’ more feral nature in check, but affected some of the more mundane processes as well. Vaguely, he was concerned the collar might even affect the fetuses. But he’d worry more about that later.

“How’s everything look?” he asked the woman.

Franklin paused in her ministrations, adjusting the swing arm of the surgical light she had focused on the Were’s upper torso. “I don’t think this is going to get infected, but I’d still like to treat it topically with antibiotics, if that’s okay?”

“Absolutely,” he encouraged her.

“Also, I’ve noticed some additional weight loss.” She indicated the scale that hung above the omega’s head. “I’m thinking we need to up its caloric intake since the breeding took,” she added.

Mitch debated that one. They’d found a decent balance in the current diet that prevented excessive weight loss and still kept the omega docile. He had to grudgingly admit a bump for the sake of the fetuses was probably in order, especially as there were multiples.

“Submit a revised feeding schedule to me by end of business today,” he ordered her.

“Yes, sir,” she answered quickly.

He stepped back, mulling over the day’s events as he watched, half-interestedly, the way Franklin proceeded to clean the omega’s body. She was slow and methodic with the hose as she rinsed it from head to toe. He entertained the notion that her motherly instincts were showing with how gentle she was…almost reverent in the sluice of water and swipe of cloth until he saw her face. There was pain and envy there as the omega personified everything that she wasn’t.

Fertile.

He swayed slightly and his vision wavered. Franklin, with her white hood and calm demeanor, suddenly reminded him of a Catholic nun in her coif and wimple. All that was missing was the black veil covering her head and draping her shoulders. He pictured a room full of beds where omegas were stretched out as though lying in state, tubes and monitors controlling everything about them, keeping them still and alive, making them perfect incubators. And each one was attended to by a Franklin, wrapped in hazmat gear like a habit, envious and serene all at the same time. A true crèche.

The cradle of humanity.

Mitch was shaken to the core by his revelation and he knew he’d make that vision a reality if it was his last act on earth.

 

 

Jensen paced back and forth, covering the length of his cage in five strides. He never took his eyes off the door to the chamber and never stopped moving. He had no idea the two guards, relegated to the observation room with strict orders to page Mitch if anything seemed amiss, thought Jensen resembled nothing so much as a tiger in a zoo, with his silent, relentless walk. It wasn’t enough to notify anyone over, but made them anxious nonetheless.

The alpha had roused hours ago, after a demeaning hosing down, water still dripping off his body. One of the guards had tossed a clean pair of scrubs nearby while the other kept a gun trained on him at all times. Jensen wanted to tear them apart for taking his mate, but he decided to bide his time. Logic dictated that they wouldn’t hurt Jared unduly since they wanted him pregnant so badly, but his wolf spit on logic and demanded retribution.

He’d already been offered his evening feeding and didn’t dare admit how the absence of a second bottle tore at his soul. Discreetly, he’d sniffed the meal, but wasn’t able to scent anything out of the ordinary. He ate in a perfunctory manner, practically throwing the empty bottle into the airlock when he was done. The guards apparently hadn’t been trusted with his collar’s remote, so there’d been no retribution for his actions. Not that he would’ve cared one way or the other.

With less than an hour to go before lights out, Jensen was practically crawling out of his skin. A low growl echoed throughout the room; he couldn’t control it. And just when he was ready to start throwing himself against the airlock, the main door opened. Jensen plastered himself against the glass.

Jared was again on the gurney, but dressed in a new shirt and scrub pants. His eyes were closed and his mouth slack, but Jensen saw the steady rise and fall of his chest. Two suited humans pushed the gurney towards the entrance of the cage, followed by Mitch, who held out the remote in warning. Jensen barely spared him a glance; his eyes were only for his mate. He backed away from the door, not wanting Mitch to have any reason to incapacitate him; he wanted to touch Jared as soon as possible.

“One questionable move and I’ll use this,” Mitch threatened.

Jensen flicked his gaze over to the human and noticed a strange gleam in the human’s brown eyes. There was something wrong about it. It made him uneasy. But it was a pointless threat; Jensen wouldn’t risk anything that would keep him from his omega a minute longer than necessary.

The two undid the buckles and the straps fell away. They carefully scooped up Jared and maneuvered his limp form to the refreshed bedding. Jensen licked his lips and clenched his fists so tightly, tiny streams of blood wound their way between his fingers. The way his mate’s limbs were manipulated, like he was nothing more than a ragdoll, burned. His growl returned.

One of the guards dropped Jared’s legs and pulled out a tranq gun, while the other hurriedly lowered his upper body. Jensen was about to snarl when Mitch yelled out, “Careful!” over the intercom. Jensen whipped his head around and scrutinized the human again. Mitch licked his lips almost nervously and Jensen filed that reaction away for future reference.

As soon as the two humans were safely ensconced in the airlock, Jensen practically threw himself to his knees by his boy. There was no point in subterfuge any longer; Jared was his mate and everyone knew it. His wolf wouldn’t be denied.

Running his hands slowly up and down Jared’s body, he frowned at how chilled the omega was. Jared’s lack of body fat and the sedation were probably responsible, but Jensen still worried. He held the boy’s hands in his and gently blew on them, trying to work some warmth back into them. From the corner of his eye, he could see Mitch slap the other humans on their shoulders. The scientist seemed almost giddy.

“Get out of those monkey suits and meet the rest of us in the canteen,” he invited. And then they were gone.

Jared’s eyes opened immediately. “What time is it?” he rasped, searching Jensen’s face desperately.

Fucking humans.

“Less than an hour until lights out,” is what the alpha said gently. He understood his mate needed something to anchor him. The humans had taken that last certainty from him by rendering him unconscious.

The alpha cradled Jared’s face in his rough hands and the boy’s eyes closed at his touch as one tear slid down his cheek.

“Alpha,” Jared breathed.

“Yes?” he asked, still unable to keep from touching Jared.

“Jensen,” he implored the alpha again.

Jensen was lost for a second, unsure what Jared needed. And then it became crystal clear. Jared had been violated again, forced to bear their unwanted touches and who knew what else. Although he mostly smelled like the water and chemicals they’d cleaned him with, underneath was still the stench of humans. Jared wanted it gone.

Moving carefully, Jensen peeled the t-shirt from the omega’s body. He couldn’t suppress the snarl that slipped free when he spied the bruises blossoming like black dahlias on his mate’s chest, but he didn’t hesitate to yank the pants off next. Springing to his feet, Jensen removed his own clothes carelessly before rejoining his mate on the mat. Jensen stretched out beside Jared and rolled him into his strong arms. He hooked a leg around the boy’s calves and held him within the cage of his body, wrapping him in the scent of his alpha.

Jared sighed contentedly and burrowed as close as the damned collars would allow, resting his forehead against Jensen’s jaw. The older Were slowly dragged the fingers from the hand not cradling his boy’s shoulders up and down the bony knobs of Jared’s spine, trying to soothe them both as the lights dimmed. Jensen did his best to rub his scent into every inch of Jared’s skin that he could, all the while tormented by horrible scenarios of what his mate had endured playing through his head. He wanted to ask, but was afraid of what his mate might say. The humiliations were growing overwhelming.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he whispered into his boy’s hair. The only answered he received was a subtle rub of skin against his chin as Jared shook his head in the negative.

“But I know what they want and why,” he whispered eventually. “I heard them.”

Jensen pulled back his head, hoping to look his mate in the eye, but Jared wouldn’t raise his head. The alpha removed his hand from his boy’s back and curled it under his jaw. He chucked Jared’s chin until the omega’s gaze met his. Jensen’s expression was quizzical.

“They thought I was asleep,” he breathed into the alpha’s ear. Jensen’s heart rate picked up at the admission. It seemed like his mate’s senses were starting to overcome the collar, too. Jensen ran his fingers through Jared’s hair in measured, repetitive strokes. The boy’s eyes slowly started to droop, which was Jensen’s plan. His mate needed his rest more than ever, if what he suspected was true. And Jensen needed to think and plan. They both had an edge back that the humans were ignorant of and they had to make the most of it.

When the lights had snuffed out completely, Jensen nudged his dozing mate. He hated to wake him, but the alpha needed to be sure.

When Jared groggily came to, he mumbled, “What is it?”

Jensen didn’t say a word. He simply fixed the omega with a fierce stare. He watched as the boy tiredly tried to figure out what was going on, his hazel eyes flicking back and forth between Jensen’s until they grew round with comprehension.

“Jensen, I can –” he began, but Jensen snatched up his hand and pressed his lips against the boy’s palm, kissing him softly. Jared nodded. After a minute, he wound his slender fingers around the alpha’s hand and dragged it down until it rested against his abdomen and then he flattened his hand on top of Jensen’s.

In the absolute darkness, Jared mouthed the word “Twins” to his mate. Jensen’s hand trembled minutely and his eyes widened. Jared nodded again.

Something like hope fluttered in the alpha’s heart.


	11. Chapter 11

Jensen rocked his mate close. There was still some time before the automated lights cycled on. He breathed in the smell of his boy, sweeter and more full of life than anything he had ever scented. It even drowned out the chemical bite of bleach that lingered on their scratchy bedding, masking it with the newness of spring rain tempered with berries. He let the aroma balance him as he replayed for the hundredth time the “talk” he and Jared had held the night before.

It had been a slow process, hampered both by Jared’s exhaustion and by the dearth of a skill neither of them possessed. Just because they saw each other as well as in daylight didn’t make them expert lip readers, so they had struggled and settled on simple, basic words to communicate. But Jared had been able to tell him everything he had discovered. The shocking fact that human women were spontaneously losing the ability to bear live young and the worse fate the humans were contemplating dooming male omegas to. Their captivity was not some kind of twisted desire to allow men to carry for fashion or ego or profit. They were trying to preserve their race by any means necessary. And Jensen tried to balance that knowledge against what their options might be since they both were growing stronger than the humans suspected.

The alpha gently slipped his fingers through his mate’s soft hair, keeping his touch light enough not to wake him. One corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile as Jared snuffled in his sleep, burrowing closer to Jensen. He drank in the picture Jared made. His mate. His children. He held his family within the cradle of his arms and, in a warped way, he understood the humans in that instant more than he ever had. He could almost sympathize with Mitch because Jared _was_ the future. But he was Jensen’s future and the alpha would die to protect him. Moreover, he would kill for him in a heartbeat, without hesitation or remorse. Of that, he was certain.

When there was the first, gray hint of “daylight” illuminating the cage, Jared gradually opened his eyes. Jensen brushed his lips against his boy’s, no more than a simple press of moist flesh against flesh. It was comfort and reassurance and a promise. Jared curled an arm over Jensen’s shoulder and pulled the alpha until he was resting on top of him. The omega tugged Jensen’s face close and began to mouth painful words to him, counting on the barely there light to cloak them from prying eyes.

“Promise me something,” he mouthed to his alpha.

Jensen nodded, eyes bright and searching.

“They have…monstrous things planned for me,” Jared continued, “and maybe our children. Don’t let them. Don’t let them use us…me…like that. I don’t want to live that way.”

“What?” Jensen asked.

Jared licked his lips nervously. “You’re strong enough now. You could make it quick.” The rest was left unsaid.

Jensen blanched. He understood perfectly well what his mate was asking of him.

“Promise me,” the omega’s lips moved again. “Please.”

Jensen lifted his head back and stared hard at his mate. It was an unthinkable thing he was asking and yet, it was the only thing he could ask of his mate. It was the only escape that Jared knew his alpha would deliver without fail. And, as he looked deep into the omega’s multihued eyes, he saw exactly how much that request had cost him and what he was placing at his alpha’s feet. He had to be equally as brave.

“I promise,” he whispered. Jared’s lips quirked up in a wavering mockery of a smile.

“Thank you, alpha,” he acknowledged and leaned up to kiss him, but Jensen turned his face slightly.

“But I need you to promise me something in return,” he told his anxious mate.

“Anything,” he breathed.

“Swear to me that you will hang on as long as possible. I need you to not give up. I _need_ you to live,” Jensen implored him. “Live for me, for our children,” and he paused to cup the lower part of Jared’s belly possessively, “but most of all, I need you to live for you.”

Jared’s brow wrinkled in confusion and he opened his mouth to speak again, but Jensen swooped down and gave him a hard kiss that hinted of grief mingled with hunger. He wondered if his omega could taste the sorrow there.

When he pulled back, he mouthed, “I will do what has to be done, but swear you will, too. Swear,” he practically ordered his mate and there was the age-old power of an alpha in that demand.

Jared reached up and stroked the raspy skin of Jensen’s jaw. “I swear,” he exhaled, thumb tracing Jensen’s full, lower lip. “I swear,” he repeated fervently. He surged up and licked at his alpha’s mouth, needy and desperate.

Jensen’s want to claim and mark his mate was riding high. He no longer cared who might have been watching them. It didn’t matter any longer. He clamped down anew on the mating bite and Jared arched up underneath him, writhing like Jensen had touched him with a live wire. But before they could go any further, a sound caused them to both turn their heads simultaneously towards the airlock.

A single human once again carried in their morning meal. Back to the original routine, Jensen noted, as he reluctantly extricated himself from his mate’s sinewy arms. Ignoring the rumpled up ball of clothing by the bed, Jensen marched naked over to the airlock. _Look all you want_ , he thought. Although the switch back to only one human bringing the food was a little disconcerting, what he noticed in the small chamber was even more so. Usually, their slop was in translucent containers. This time, however, only one was in a transparent bowl. The other was in a red one.

“What’s this about?” he demanded of the faceless human watching him, pointing at the different bowl.

“That’s for the omega,” the deep voice replied over the intercom.

“Why?” Jensen asked, scowling.

“Orders,” the human replied and then crossed his arms over his chest.

Jensen didn’t say another word, but simply padded over to their bed. He set everything down, but before he passed the tagged dish to Jared, he took a surreptitious sniff. The stuff smelled putrid, but not tampered with. He dipped his fingers into it and took a taste, but only for show; he already knew it was safe. It appeared the humans had simply decided to increase his mate’s portion, probably because of their pups. Nothing added to it this time.

“Hey!” the human rapped on the glass. “I said that one was for the omega.”

Jensen shrugged when Jared cocked a head at him curiously. “Just checking,” he explained, speaking loud enough so the human could easily hear him, “after what happened last time.”

“Why bother?” Jared whispered. “They’re going to do what they’re going to do regardless.”

Jensen picked up his own plate and started eating. Between bites, he added, “If it buys you a few minutes, it’s worth it. In a moment, anything can happen. Don’t ever forget that.” Jared raised glassy eyes to his alpha and nodded, starting to eat his own food slowly.

They fed in silence.

 

 

Mitch sat as his desk, his knee rattling a nervous jig against one of its legs. He had read and re-read the report he had finalized over the last, few days with every detail they had learned and speculated on regarding the omega’s successful – to date – breeding. To see it all collected in one place was frightenly impressive. His finger was literally hovering over the "send" button, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to pull the trigger. Every logical synapse in his brain fired at him to send the thing off to Heyerdahl and be done with it, but something deeper held him back. He knew with absolute certainty that once the director of FEMA, who had been oddly silent the past week, got his hands on the data, he would agree that they should sit back and monitor the Were’s incubation from start to finish, so as to confirm it could still reproduce successfully and how long the gestation lasted. But, late last night, Mitch had come to a different conclusion, spawned out of a growing sense of desperation.

What did it matter, he thought, if they verified its offspring’s viability? That was no guarantee it would be equally as successful with human embryos, so why not cut to the chase? Mitch was growing certain that the Were could carry to term with its own even without hard evidence to back that assumption up, and he was beginning to consider terminating its pregnancy in favor of immediate human embryo implantation while the conditions within its womb were still receptive. After all, he argued internally, if they waited until after the Were whelped they might have to sit on their hands for another five months before it went into heat again, assuming they couldn’t procure another test subject in the meantime. And although Franklin’s offer was tempting, they’d have to muck around for nearly a month of hormone therapy before they could collect any fresh eggs from her. It would be easier and less emotional to start with the donated eggs they had in storage.

And the more Mitch deliberated, the more he realized he was going to go ahead and do exactly that. Heyerdahl’s radio silence couldn’t have arrived at a more opportune instance. Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission, he reasoned. If that request for forgiveness came wrapped in a sonogram of a human child, he knew it wouldn’t be refused. He’d be hailed as a hero in a time of absolute crisis.

Mitch undid the top two buttons of his shirt – he’d forgone a tie days ago – and gave a quick glance to the second monitor he had liberated from the observation room and installed on his desk. He watched the Weres nearly 24/7 now. They were currently eating their morning meal. For the third day in a row, the alpha fed from the omega’s dish first before relinquishing the food over to it. Mitch chuckled. In a roundabout way, he appreciated that the alpha was doing what he could to protect his mate, even though it was pointless. What could the omega do with the knowledge if they actually sedated the alpha? It wasn’t strong enough to stand against them, not with its collar active and five months of captivity wearing it down. But he supposed it was the gesture that counted. The alpha male making a show of protection and all to the weaker one. Not unexpected behavior, he noted.

As he stared at the omega, Mitch began to rethink the need to keep the alpha on hand. Perhaps Mark had been right the other day. After all, he had done what was needed and when, not if, they moved ahead with surrogacy, the alpha would be redundant from that point forward. And there was the off chance that the alpha might sense something wrong about its mate and kill it for carrying someone else's young. That was definitely a risk Mitch was unwilling to take. And it wasn’t as if they had an unlimited supply of secure holding cells available. He’d definitely have to rethink his denial of Mark’s request. There were painless methods of euthanasia at their disposal, after all. And it wouldn't be the first time, either.

Turning back to the monitor where his report was visible, Mitch debated the merits of whether it was worth it to mention his theory regarding the corn or if he would simply come off as deranged to Heyerdahl. He supposed that if he offered his theory after he could successfully report a human surrogacy, he would be taken significantly more seriously. He decided to hold off on the inclusion of his own Gaia Hypothesis until a later date.

Satisfied with his reasoning, Mitch was about to page Mark to discuss the possible euthanasia of the alpha, when the shrill ring of his satellite phone startled him. The device, which had been an unused fixture on his desk since his arrival, skittered across the blotter as it alternately rang and vibrated. Mitch snatched it up and pressed the call answer button, knowing it could only be one person on the other end. The phone was for extreme emergency use only.

“Yes, Director Heyerdahl?” he asked, keeping his voice level.

“Dr. Pileggi,” the director began in his distinctive, sibilant lisp, “we have a problem.”

Mitch cleared his throat and thought to himself, “Of course we do. The human race is about to go belly up.” But he caught himself in time so that he instead responded, “What’s happened?”

“Almost one week ago, Anonymous hacked into our database. We were able to shut them down, but not quickly enough,” he snapped brusquely.

Mitch pictured the director, with his ridiculously high forehead wrinkled in concern and sky blue eyes almost as icy as Mark’s, and waited for the other shoe to drop.

“They managed to obtain several video clips from Project Crèche,” he hissed, “and upload those videos to a variety of social media platforms like YouTube, Tumblr and Facebook.” The line grew silent.

“What did they get?” Mitch finally asked when it appeared the director had stopped offering information.

“The gem was of your subordinate demonstrating the effects of the collar to the new arrival. I’m sure you’re familiar with the incident, Dr. Pileggi?” If Mitch didn’t know Heyerdahl as well as he did, he would almost think the director was playful. Almost.

“I’m aware,” Mitch ground out and he rubbed viciously at his eyes under his glasses, as though he could gouge them out with the motion. He could still picture the gleeful way Mark had made the omega squirm, all to drive home a harsh, but necessary, lesson for the alpha.

“Then you know what a fucking nightmare this is!” Heyerdahl shouted so loudly, Mitch actually had to move the phone away from his ear.

“No, I don’t,” Mitch replied when he finally felt brave enough to hold the phone close again. “How seriously can anyone take that anyway?” he wondered aloud, trying to minimize in his own mind the possible ramifications. “So it’s gone viral on YouTube. So what? In another couple of days, some sneezing panda will take the world by storm again and this will disappear along with ‘Charlie bit my finger’ and ‘Gangnam Style’.”

“This is not some fringe, David Duchovny wannabe from a bad _X-Files_ episode telling everyone he ‘wants to believe’,” Heyerdahl snapped. “This is Anonymous. The same group that has hacked not only the US government, but Israel, Tunisia and Uganda, to name a few. They’ve targeted PayPal, Visa, Mastercard and even Sony, for Christ’s sake. When they post something, people listen. And more importantly, they believe. And now they’ve hacked us,” he finished, his voice nothing more than a rasp.

A ball of anxiety began to twist in Mitch’s stomach. “So what does this mean for us here?”

“What this means is we shut everything down now,” came Heyerdahl’s terse reply, with heavy emphasis on the last word. “The only thing in our favor is that Anonymous apparently didn’t find out exactly _why_ we’ve been studying Weres, only that we’re treating them ‘inhumanly’,” he sniggered over the word. “Morons. By their very definition, Weres are inhuman. How else are we supposed to treat them?”

“So we what? Assume a holding pattern?” Mitch asked, hoping the director didn’t mean what he thought he did.

“Shut everything down means shut everything down! Whatever data you have, you copy to portable hard drives or burn onto disks. Every bit of data and research you have from this point forward must be hand-delivered. Consider electronic communications to be compromised. Erase every last computer on the premises and get rid of the test subjects. I want the ground salted and burned by the time you're finished. An extraction team will be on site to relocate your group in twelve hours.”

Mitch couldn’t believe what he was hearing. They were so close. “But, sir, if we could have just a few –”

“You have twelve hours and don’t use this phone again,” the director commanded before the line went dead.

Mitch dropped the device like it burned. It hit the desk with a dull thud. He was certain he held the answer to everything in the palm of his hand and he was being ordered to cast it aside into the wind.

He wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it.

Scrambling to the intercom system, he pressed the overhead paging button.

“Dr. Pellegrino, report to my office. Stat.”

*****

“So there you have it,” Mitch finished, his gaze including every team member. “We’ve got less than twelve hours to shut this place down, pack up and evacuate, so I need everybody to cooperate and coordinate with one another.

“Franklin, burn everything we have onto portable hard drives. And I mean everything, even if it appears to be inconsequential. We won’t get a second bite of the apple once we leave here.” He fixed her with a stern glare and the young woman gave a curt nod. She started to ask a question, but Mitch cut her off. He suspected she wanted to know about the omega’s status in all this, given her recently voiced and rather personal interest. “As soon as you’ve gotten everything, let Evans know.” He turned to the redhead. “Brick every single computer on the premises, including iPads, phones and even MP3 players. Absolutely nothing electronic should be left functional. Got it?”

The young man straightened in his seat. “Yes, sir.”

“Jackson, I want you to sweep every room in the facility and make sure that not a scrap of personal or identifying information has been left behind. This is critical,” he paused and stood directly in front of the young man. “Do you understand me?”

Jackson swallowed visibly. “I appreciate the gravity of the situation, sir,” he croaked.

"Good."

Finally coming to face the two person security team, Mitch continued, “I’m going to need you two to get suited up. You’ll be the ones to deliver the Weres’ final meal and help Mark ‘escort’ the omega to the lab.” Both men nodded. “But,” he added, “as before, neither of you have BSL 3 clearance and I’m not about to break protocol now. Once you get the gurney to the lab, let Mark take over. You are to vacate the immediate premises. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” the two men replied almost simultaneously, their military training showing.

“After you’ve delivered the omega, get back to the armory and pack up all weapons. Nothing is to be left behind. Transport will have room for it all. Is that clear?” Mitch fixed them both with stern glares.

“Yes, sir,” they parroted again.

Clapping his hands together, Mitch excused them all. “Then get to it.”

Everyone made a beeline for the door except Mark. His second in command glared at him with his frigid, blue eyes.

“What?” Mitch demanded after a minute of solid silence.

“This is a big, fuckin’ mistake, Mitch,” he hissed, sauntering over to him. “Heyerdahl wants them gone, so let’s just go with the CAK method. Seal the vents of their cage and flood it with an asphyxiant gas. We’ve got plenty of Argon on tap.”

Mitch whirled around, grabbed Mark by his shirt and slammed him against the closest wall. “We are not going to go with controlled animal killing,” he snarled. “Not with the omega. Not when we’re so close.” He shook the younger man for emphasis. “We’ll euthanize the alpha, but that still leaves us with over ten hours with the omega that I am not willing to throw away. Heyerdahl can go fuck himself.”

Meeting the older man’s glare head on, Mark raised his hands in a placating gesture. Shrugging his shoulders, he wheedled, “Okay, you’re the boss. And who am I to turn down a little more time with that thing?”

Mitch released the younger man’s shirt as though it was something toxic, before he regained his composure and smoothed out some of the wrinkles he’d made. “I’m sorry,” he apologized after an awkward pause. “But you know how important this is and any data and samples we can collect are priceless at this point.”

Stepping to the side, Mark tugged his shirt briskly. “I get it, boss man. No need to preach to the choir. So what’s the plan?”

“Euthanize the alpha and vivisection for the omega. We’ll remove and preserve its fetuses, take some tissue samples and remove its womb for further study. And I want it all on film, so make sure you have Evans leave the lab camera functioning and intact,” he rattled off. “And it’s just you and me for this part; it’ll go quicker that way.”

Mark nodded and headed to the exit. Before he left, he twisted around and asked Mitch, “How do you want to do the alpha?”

Mitch huffed out a breath and rubbed his chin. “Twenty grams of pentobarbital in the water. That’s twice the prescribed amount used for assisted suicide. Should be quick enough and painless. Even though he shouldn’t be able to taste it, add some sweetener to the mix. Just to be on the safe side.”

Mark’s brows furrowed but he agreed easily enough. “You got it.” And he was gone.

Mitch sank back onto one of the abandoned chairs and spun around. Half-interestedly, he watched as the Weres on the monitor talked and touched. It was such a strange feeling to know that they were all on borrowed time now.

All of them.


	12. Chapter 12

Mitch wouldn’t label it pacing exactly, but he did recognize the fact that he was marching rather methodically back and forth behind the door to the holding chamber. Slightly off to the side stood the two security men, already suited up to enter the habitat. Both were leaning back against the gurney that was tucked up along the bare wall. Idly, Mitch realized he never thought of them by name, as he did the rest of his team. What were they again? Jones? Smith? Somehow he was never quite able to convince himself those were their real names in any case. Provided by what was loosely referred to as the “enforcement” division of FEMA, they might as well have been called Thing One and Thing Two for all that it mattered. With their hoods in place, they stood calm and resolute, like statues. Nearly in exact opposition to the rest of the team.

Mitch had tried to explain things as succinctly as he could to the others, given them directives to follow, but he knew they were all on edge. Per Heyerdahl’s command, all electronic forms of communication had been cut off. But he knew they were wondering, just as he was, what was going on topside. Had Anonymous released any other videos or information since he’d spoken to the director? Were people finally waking up to the nightmare of a reality the world’s governments had been painstakingly keeping a dank, wretched secret? Did they know now? And if they didn’t, had they at least caught a glimpse of his team’s faces? Or learned their names? He shuddered.

Mitch recalled with crystal clarity the worldwide outrage a few years back when a Zimbabwean lion named Cecil had been killed by Walter Palmer. Every aspect of the dentist’s life became almost immediately unsustainable. He’d had to shutter his work and go into hiding from the moment the news broke of his hand in the animal’s painful and ignoble death. Hell, even Mitch remembered his name – that’s how far-reaching his infamy had grown. If Anonymous had leaked clear shots of their faces and names, what would happen? With the hunter, an actress had Tweeted his home address to all her followers in a matter of days. Millions had known exactly where he had lived. Mitch might have nothing of value at his house, but if they found it, they could easily track down his daughter. And if he was beginning to envision these things, he was sure his team was as well. Everyone had something to lose. And they were all starting to feel trapped underground.

He forced himself to stop and lean against the wall, crossing his arms firmly against his chest like an undersea diver trying to ground himself during an attack of vertigo. But there was still the desire to scratch along his arms. Millions of phantom ants marched under his skin, ratcheting up his nerves with their maddening itch. He was torn. He needed this to be over so he could see his daughter in person, make sure she was safe, touch her with his own two hands. But he also needed to wring every last secret out of the omega’s body while they were still here. There was no point in fooling himself any longer. No one was getting another bite of the apple anytime soon. With the breach of their research, obtaining other viable specimens would become that much closer to impossible. He had to make this one count.

After interminable minutes of a slow growing low-level anxiety, Mitch heard the distinctive squeak of Mark’s shoes on the concrete floor. His subordinate popped around the corner, carrying the two bottles of enhanced water. He still wore his suit coat and tie, oddly looking more composed than Mitch, with his unbuttoned and rumpled shirt.

“You’re good to go,” he said as he raised both containers higher in acknowledgement. Mitch nodded and the younger man handed them off to the first guard. “I’m still not sure about this,” he added almost reluctantly.

“The pentobarbital’s taste can cause nausea, which can lead to vomiting. We can’t have that happen. You know that. The sweetener is there merely to make it palatable in case he can taste it, however slight that taste might be.” But Mark knew all this already; he didn’t need it spelled out for him. Mitch didn’t understand his reticence in the matter.

“I get that, Mitch.” The older scientist winced at the familiarity Mark was showing in front of the guards. They might be shutting down, but protocols still needed to be maintained, dammit. “What I don’t understand is why are we bothering at all?”

Mitch glanced through the one-way glass in the center of the door. The older Were was softly talking to the omega, their hands touching like secrets their bodies were sharing with one another. “Because no one should die in fear if it can be helped,” he replied, still observing the Weres. “That’s our responsibility in all this – to make it as quick and painless as possible after what they’ve given us.”

“Well,” Mark added after a pause, “the omega’s gonna freak when it sees the alpha keel over. How are you planning on dealing with that?”

“You’ll incapacitate it with the collar and before we sedate it for the final procedure in the lab, I’ll explain that we’re simply running more tests and it will be back with the alpha in a few hours. I’ll be the one to explain everything,” he repeated when he saw Mark smirk.

“You’re the one with the killer bedside manner,” he mocked. “I bow to your greatness if you want to whisper sweet nothings in its ear.”

“When you leave the water,” Mitch instructed Thing One, “step to the side so I have a clear shot of everything.” Thing One nodded and entered the main room.

Since he had started the site shutdown procedure, the cameras were no longer active. Mitch would have had a better view of the proceedings from the observation room, but he and Mark would need to move quickly, so he stood by the door like a nervous parent peeking out a window to see the date who had come to pick up their child. On his right, Mark and the second guard were standing ready with the gurney, waiting for Mitch’s signal.

Thing One stepped out of the airlock after depositing the bottles and moved to the right, giving Mitch a good look into the habitat. As usual, the alpha was the one to collect the evening meal. That’s what Mitch had been counting on, since both bottles were dosed. He knew there was a very real possibility of the omega drinking its bottle, too. Mitch would regret it if it occurred, since it would be more useful to see the omega’s circulatory system in action when he removed the womb and any other organs that might be useful for further study, but he was prepared for a necropsy instead of vivisection if need be.

The alpha bent over the bottles for a moment with his head bowed. He was looking for something.

 _Fuck_.

They’d forgotten the protein bars. Mitch sucked in a breath. But the alpha didn’t kick up a fuss. With the change in the feeding schedule a few days ago, he apparently wasn’t surprised any longer with their tinkering. Probably a sign he was getting with the program. Mitch let out a sigh of relief as he saw the Were turn his back on them and tilt up the bottle, obviously parched and wanting to slake his thirst quickly, judging by how fast he was chugging the drink down.

 _So predictable_ , he thought.

The Were didn’t get farther than a few feet before he started to sway. “Let’s go,” Mitch ordered and he, Mark and Thing Two, who was pushing the gurney, entered the room in time to watch the alpha crumple to his knees before completely collapsing face-first onto the floor. The two bottles were crushed underneath him and even from where he was standing, Mitch saw the widening puddle of water that spread out along the floor from the second, untouched bottle.

“Nooo,” screamed the omega as it pushed to its feet, but Mark was faster. The younger scientist had the remote at the ready and began to immediately shock the omega into submission. It fell across the mat, one arm outstretched towards the alpha, wailing pitifully before the electrical current brought it to the brink of unconsciousness.

“That’s good enough, Mark,” Mitch snapped. “You two get in there and strap him up.”

Without hesitation, the two guards entered the habitat, wheeling the gurney in with them. Mitch kept one eye on them as they rolled the pliant body of the omega onto its back and slowly wrangled its lanky limbs on the gurney. Out of habit, Mitch yelled, “Careful,” to them. Mark swung his head in the older man’s direction and rolled his eyes.

“Does it even matter now?” he asked.

“It always matters,” Mitch retorted, but his heart wasn’t completely in it. It really didn’t matter any longer. Everything was crumbling around him. This was the last thing he could do right.

The guards strapped the omega down tight. Its head lolled weakly in the direction of its fallen alpha, fingers scrabbling uselessly at the side of the gurney. Mark moved beside the stretcher and marched out with the guards, Mitch trailing close behind. As they exited the airlock, he paused, thumping his closed fist against the doorframe. There was still the matter of the alpha’s collar. With the computer shutdowns, information was no longer being wirelessly collected. There wouldn’t be much on there at this point, but it would have recorded the Were’s bodily functions and final reactions to the pentobarbital. That was worth keeping, he decided.

“Mark,” he called after the blond man. “I’m going to collect the alpha’s collar since nothing’s downloading now,” he explained. “Go ahead and get the omega set up, but wait for me.”

Mark turned and raised his hand with his forefinger curled against his thumb in the universal symbol of “okay”.

“I mean it. Wait for me. I want to talk to it before we start,” he added in a much sterner voice as the younger man exited the room with the guards and the nearly unconscious Were. Mark waved his hand in the air again without turning – a vague acknowledgment of Mitch’s directive – before rolling around the corner and disappearing from sight. Mitch let out a deep breath as he leaned against the airlock doorway, listening to the warble of the gurney’s wheels that reminded him of nothing so much as the broken shopping carts he always seemed to get stuck with at the grocery store.

Mitch looked around the room. Nearly six months and it was growing quiet, still. The computers had stopped their insistent humming, the cameras’ blinking eyes finally closed. He shut his own eyes for a moment, inhaling deep of the recirculated air and reached up to loosen his tie before he remembered he wasn’t wearing one; he would be breathing fresh stuff soon enough. He swiveled about, not bothering to close the airlock, and walked slowly over to the body of the alpha.

Mitch took a moment to regard the creature. The Were lay on his stomach in the middle of a small pool of water from their last meal. His shirt had become dark in patches that bled around his waist, where the material had greedily soaked up the tainted liquid. Whenever Mitch had had to euthanize test animals in the past, he always marveled at how the creatures seemed smaller in death, as though hollowed out once the life had left their bodies. But not the Were. His shoulders were still as broad, legs as powerful as before, profile noble. From a clinical point of view, he was a magnificent specimen. And his death had been a waste. But, Mitch was able to console himself with the knowledge that it had been a quick one. He’d made sure of that.

Kneeling down, he fumbled for the remote in his shirt pocket while carefully trying to stay clear of the water, not wanting to carry a visible reminder of this death on his person. When he had the slim device in his hand, he stared dumbly at the single button for a few seconds. He couldn’t believe it; he’d temporarily blanked on how to remove the thing.

“Jesus, get it together, Mitch,” he chided himself quietly and dragged a hand over his mouth, stroking his goatee. “Extra safeguards so you can’t accidently release it, remember? Hold the button down on the collar while pressing on the remote.”

Switching the electronics to his left hand, he leaned over and ran the fingers of his right along the collar, searching for the slight indentation of the button. When he didn’t feel it along the back of the silver loop, he slipped his fingers underneath and began to slowly rotate the collar, still hunting for the button. When he reached further under the prone Were’s neck to ratchet it again, he brushed up against the alpha’s carotid artery and felt a thump. And then another.

Before he could yank his hand back, the Were’s one, visible eye snapped open.

 

As soon as Jensen had leaned over the bottles, he could smell something off about them. And, although it had been extremely muted, he had heard Mitch and Mark as they talked behind the main door. The very fact that they were that close, but chose to stand behind what could only be one-way glass rather than taunt them in person, screamed danger. Jensen made a split-second decision, only regretting he couldn’t give Jared some kind of forewarning.

For the last hour, both he and his boy had heard the sounds and felt the vibrations of the humans. It seemed like they were all on the move with frenetic energy, something very different from the usually sedate status quo. Jensen was counting on broken patterns. If at least three of the humans were near, the other four might still be tied up with their various projects and no one was monitoring the camera feeds. So he presented his back to the humans, held one bottle close and tipped the other high enough so that it would look to them like he was drinking quickly, while in actuality he let the water splash his chin and dribble down his throat, soaking his shirt thoroughly. He counted slowly to ten before wavering on his feet and then pitched forward, crushing the bottles beneath him. When the others rushed into the room and no one shocked him, Jensen knew the cameras had been at least temporarily abandoned.

It had nearly killed the alpha to stay “dead to the world” while his mate had cried out for him and was subsequently electrocuted senseless. As he remained motionless on the ground, Jensen prayed Jared would remember the promise he had exacted from him and have faith in his alpha. With both of them still collared, there was no way for Jensen to do anything more than bide his time. He needed the humans to split up. Divide and conquer. And he got his wish.

Struggling to keep his breathing imperceptible, Jensen listened as the lead scientist told his subordinate to wait for him and that he wanted to talk to Jensen’s mate before they did whatever grotesque procedure they had planned. They were going to keep him alive a little while longer. That was all Jensen needed to hear. The human drew near and lowered himself to his knees.

 _Patience_ , he told himself. _Closer_. _Closer_.

The human slid his clammy fingers under the collar and mumbled about how to remove the damned thing and that was what Jensen had been hoping for. When he leaned nearer, Jensen opened his eyes. He swung out with his right arm, striking the human’s left one above the wrist and the remote flew out of his hand, clattering and skittering across the cage floor until it came to rest against the far wall. Jensen turned and pushed himself up, but the bald human was already on the move, scrambling to chase after the remote. Jensen got into a crouch and flung himself bodily after him, catching the human around the calves, toppling them both. He tried to yank the man closer, but Mitch twisted, freed one leg and savagely kicked out, catching Jensen squarely on the jaw. His head snapped back and Mitch scrambled on all fours towards the remote.

Jensen whipped his head back and forth to clear the spots that flickered across his field of vision and jumped back up. Mitch slapped a hand out, pawing at the slim, metallic lifeline, but Jensen lunged forward and grabbed both of his ankles and yanked hard.

“Nooo!” Mitch screamed as he was pulled inexorably back on his stomach, nails screeching across the bare floor like on a chalkboard.

Jensen jumped up into a squat and snaked an arm down to seize the human’s belt, using it to flip the flailing man onto his back, before dropping down across his stomach and chest, pining the human’s arms in place with his knees. The air rushed out of the human’s body with a loud “oof” and he was momentarily dazed, glasses somehow still perched on his nose, but now askew. Jensen knew he didn’t have time to waste, but he needed to know…had to ask. Gathering fistfuls of the man’s shirt, the alpha shook him hard.

“Why?” he snarled into the man’s face. When he didn’t get a response, he shook him again. “Why didn’t you ask us for help?” His eyes bored into the human with deadly intent.

For about ten seconds, there was nothing but silence. Jensen thought the man was too incoherent to understand the question, but then the human coughed, splattering a small amount of blood across his mouth in the process. Jensen guessed he might have bit his tongue in the brief struggle or busted a tooth or two. Then he did the unexpected: he smiled, teeth painted pink.

“Ask _you_ for help?” he rasped, his cough melding into a twisted giggle. “Ask creatures that are so backwards that they believe in pagan gods to try and help us?”

Jensen tightened his grip on the man’s shirt, lip twisting into a snarl. “You didn’t have to do this to us. Torture my mate like this.”

Mitch sobered up and his face hardened. “I would do _anything_ ,” he hissed, “to save us. Ten years. That’s all we’ve got left before we stop reproducing. In a hundred years, we could be gone! This,” his eyes darted briefly around, indicating the cage, “is the least of what I – what we are willing to do.”

Keeping the man locked in place with a hand on his chest, Jensen reached down, plucked off his glasses and threw them aside. He leaned in close and slowly smiled, delighting in the way that Mitch’s face paled.

“My children will still be walking the earth when yours are nothing more than bones,” he smirked. The human simply looked confused. “You look at us and only see the wolf when we were always so much more than that – the next step in evolution.” He ducked down close enough as though to kiss him. “I’m almost sixty years old and not even in my prime.”

Jensen sat back.

“The old gods are new again and your time is over,” he decreed.


	13. Chapter 13

 

Mitch’s eyes widened in wonder and fear. Jensen looked at the man for a moment. All he saw, however, was the creature who tortured and violated his mate over and over again. And a man who threatened to do worse. There was never any room in Jensen’s heart for pity in this, but there was no room any longer for mercy, either. He cupped the man’s cheeks and slid his hands up until his thumbs rested just below his lower lids, pausing only long enough for the first flicker of understanding – and fear – to dance across the human’s rheumy, brown eyes. Then he moved them up and pressed in.

Jensen felt the gelatinous orbs slowly give way. Mitch let out a howl that was pitched so high, he might have been mistaken for a woman. He bucked and squealed under Jensen’s legs, but the alpha simply locked his legs tight around the human’s torso and threw back his head, riding it out. Grunting with the effort, tendons and cords rigid in sharp contrast against the column of his neck, the alpha continued to push inexorably forward until his thumbs popped into the human’s skull, gouging into the vulnerable gray matter with ease.

Mitch’s body shivered, but his screams had wound down like a toy whose battery was slowly dying. Jensen bent over him and sniffed deep. Copper and something richer. Dead. Good.

He didn’t waste any time scrambling around and getting to his feet. He spotted the remote by the wall and scooped it up. Dragging a free finger around the silver band, he gritted his teeth at the numb sensation that slowly morphed into a burning one along his digit as he left a bloody trail along the collar. He finally discovered the subtle dip and pressed down hard. The sting against his throat was strong and he knew he had to act quickly. Following Mitch’s directions, Jensen held down tight and then thumbed the remote. There was a subtle click and the collar popped free.

Like a giant wave, sense returned full force to Jensen, stretching his skin to bursting like an overinflated balloon. Sights, smells, and sounds threatened to bowl him over with their combined strength. The stale, recirculated air, filled with the stench of humans – body odor, soap, smoke and waste. The rich maroon of blood that collected under the human’s ruined head dazzled his eyes and, in the distance, the scurrying of feet like rats. As it was, they brought the alpha to his knees. He dropped his head back and howled as all his strength surged back into his body after having been locked away. For a moment, it was too much and he felt battered by the force of it all, tossed about like a stick in an eddy at a river’s edge. His nostrils flared open and shut with the effort to get his ragged breathing under control as his wolf clawed to the surface.

“Dr. Pileggi, should I just leave these…” Franklin’s voice drifted over.

Jensen jerked his head around and spotted the female scientist barely inside the door to the main room, holding several items in her hands. There was a dull _clack_ as the hard drives she was carrying hit the concrete floor. They stared at one another until, almost simultaneously, they both eyed the controls to the cage. They bolted at the same time for the airlock. As she lunged forward to slap at the panel, Jensen loped across the cell in a couple of strides and shot a hand out in time to grab her wrist. With one twist, he broke the bone like a brittle branch. She sagged in his grip, useless, so he released her. Collapsing to her knees, she tugged the broken limb against her chest and cradled it close.

Whimpering, she stammered, “Please. I-I’m a woman.” Like that was an excuse. Like that granted her absolution. And she had the gall to lift her hazel eyes to meet Jensen’s cold, jade ones unflinchingly.

He towered over her and caught a whiff of her scent. It was the same one that had clung to his mate’s body, like a foul pall, the last time they had taken him. She had touched him against his will, from head to toe. Maybe she even dreamed of Jared carrying her babies like nothing more than a brood mare.

He sunk to his knees in front of her and clasped her face between his hands. Her lips wavered, but a small, hopeful smile appeared. With a quick jerk of his hands to the side, he snapped her neck effortlessly. Jensen let her body, eyes wide open, slither from his grip to collapse across the floor. He drew himself up to his full height and loomed above her.

“But you’re a human first,” he finally replied.

Moving to the doorway, he peered out cautiously, scenting the air. His wolf was practically snarling at him to be free, but he knew there might be doors and other objects he’d need hands to manipulate, so he beat that part of himself back. And deeper still, he felt the pull of his bond. Jared. His mate. His soul. Jensen’s eyes slid closed and he held in the whimper that wanted to slip free. His mate was still alive. Mark had been directed to keep him that way, but Jensen knew the cold man wouldn’t wait forever. The clock was winding down and although he ached to go to the omega, Jensen made the hard choice – the tactical one. There was still a chance he could be overpowered by the remaining humans, especially since they held his mate, who he would always put before himself. He’d have to kill the rest first.

Padding silently down the hallway, Jensen cocked his ear to the side. Differentiating between the overwhelming sounds was becoming manageable the longer the collar was off. Not twenty feet ahead, someone was muttering to himself, complaining about not enough time. One corner of Jensen’s lips curled upwards. The human didn’t know the half of it. There was also the distinct clink of metal hitting metal and Jensen smelled the heavy odor of gun oil. The armory. Two guards. They were the most trained of the group and potentially the most deadly. But Jensen had seen them. Their actions had become predictable and rote over their months here. They’d grown complacent and careless only having to feed and wheel around the animals. They’d lost their edge.

He slipped around the corner and saw several large, resin crates that were stacked along both sides of an open doorway to his left. By the size of the containers, they obviously held weapons of various sorts. The guards were packing everything up. The humans were shutting things down. Jensen didn’t have time to ponder what that meant for him and other Weres. He’d worry about that later.

Compartmentalizing his concerns, Jensen crept closer to the doorway. Balanced on top of one of the larger crates was a case that more than likely, given its shape and style, held a custom – probably scoped – long-range rifle. It was packed separately, so it was probably a favorite. He grabbed the case, flipped open the latches and flung it about five feet farther down the hallway, where it landed with an awful racket. He crouched behind the closest stack of crates and waited.

“What the ever lovin’ fuck?” one of the guards yelled. “If one of those brainiacs running around like a chicken with its head cut off knocked over Thelma, I’m gonna shoot them myself.”

“Go check on your girlfriend,” a deeper voice chuckled. “I’ll start inventorying the ammo in the back storage for transport. We are definitely not leaving all that shit here.”

The first guard, stocky with a militaristic buzz-cut, came out and immediately looked to his left, spotting the spilled weapon and magazines that had come loose from the custom foam interior. “Son of a bitch!” He knelt down and began to triage his apparently beloved “Thelma”, while Jensen crept up behind him. But Jensen had made a mistake; the guard wasn’t as lax in his training as he had thought. Some instincts prevailed and as Jensen was about to get his hands around the man’s throat, the guard spun around. Even in a half-crouching position, he managed to grab fistfuls of Jensen’s t-shirt, fall backward with a knee to the alpha’s abdomen and use his momentum to toss Jensen up and over his head and shoulders.

Twisting in midair, Jensen reached deep within himself and touched his core. The Were closed his eyes as the heat poured out, flowed along his bones, reshaping them as well as muscle and tissue. Bones cracked and muscles shortened in the blink of an eye; hair burst over his skin like a wildfire. When he landed on all four paws, his clothes in shreds around him, his wolf was free. Like when he was rid of the collar, there was a long moment when Jensen was flooded with amplified scents and sounds, his wolf even more in tune with its surroundings than before and it threatened to drown him. But he caught the movement the human made towards a bayonet still in the gun case and he sprang on the man, pushing everything else aside.

The two tumbled with a raucous crash into the far stack of crates. Before the human was able to swing his arm around with the knife, Jensen hit his chest with his fore paws and clamped his jaws around his throat, tearing viciously at the man’s jugular. Venous blood splattered along his tawny coat as Jensen continued to tear and gnash and once Jensen hit the carotid artery, blood spurted out like a geyser. It covered Jensen and the wall like a Jackson Pollok masterpiece. The human never even had a chance to cry out; only a wet gurgle escaped his lips as his life’s blood drained out. He lay splayed against the fallen crates, unmoving.

From the back of the armory, the other guard called out in a muffled voice, “What the hell are you doing out there, Jonesy? We don’t have time to redecorate.”

Jensen shifted back up onto two legs, shook his head vigorously to clear his eyes of blood and plastered himself with his back against the wall beside the door. There was no way he could hide the damage their tussle had caused or drag the dead human out of sight.

“Jonesy?” the other guard called again, his voice growing louder until he obviously saw the still-twitching legs of his fallen coworker in the hall. “Jesus Christ!”

He came barreling through the doorway just as Jensen flung out his left arm, catching the man high on his chest. He was flung backwards – effectively clotheslined – and landed hard on his back. Jensen spun around and dropped to his knees with his arm cocked back. When he landed next to the man, he punched him dead center in his larynx. The effects were almost instantaneous.

Jensen watched as the man, already winded from the sudden impact to the floor, struggled to draw a breath from his crushed airway to no avail. He fumbled uselessly at his throat, face flushing an ugly crimson. The alpha simply rose and watched as the second guard choked to death. Four down, three left to go.

Closing his eyes, Jensen moved his head first left and then right. He could still feel Jared, but he pushed his joy down to stay focused. He strained, listening to the various sounds of the bunker until…

His eyes flew open and he turned to the left. Water running somewhere farther along the hall. Someone was cleaning up. Jensen began a silent run through the sterile halls, rounding first left and then right, as he tracked the growing noise. He slowed as the smell of human, along with soap and other inorganics, wafted closer. Another open doorway beckoned to the Were and he slinked inside once he was certain by the sounds that there was only one within.

On a Spartan bed, made with military neatness, an open duffel lay. Shirts and pants were stuffed haphazardly inside, sleeves hanging out in disarray and t-shirts balled up, while a stack of books rested tidily beside the luggage. From what must have been the bathroom, a plume of steam drifted out. Jensen crept closer as the running water shut off and he heard the click of a shower door opening and then closing. He listened to the sound of rough terrycloth brushing against flesh and then a faucet was opened. When Jensen peered around the doorway, he saw a redheaded man, towel wrapped about his waist, hunched over a stainless steel sink brushing his teeth. The alpha sidled up right behind him.

The man, who didn’t appear much older than Jared, straightened up and gasped when he saw Jensen’s reflection in the mirror alongside his own. And what a sight it was. Feral smile, blond hair coated with so much blood it almost appeared strawberry in the fluorescent lighting and broad, naked chest spattered in gore. Jensen smirked as the toothbrush fell from the human’s lips with a clatter into the metal bowl. He shot out a hand and grabbed a fistful of that red hair, restraining him. He yanked back until the man’s face was inches from him and he looked up at Jensen in abject fear. The scientist’s heartbeat practically thundered and the tang of urine filled the air. Jensen shoved the man’s head forward with all his might into the mirror above the sink. He slammed it back and forth until there was nothing recognizable left amidst the shower of broken glass before letting his body tumble to the tile floor.

Jensen strode from the bathroom as another man entered. “Let’s shake a leg, Evans,” he called out before coming to a halt when he spotted the alpha in the center of the dead man’s quarters. Jensen, however, kept moving forward. From where his hands swung loosely by his side, claws began to take form. The metamorphosis wasn’t lost on the newcomer.

“Whoa,” he rasped.

“Glad you approve,” Jensen growled and hooked his arms forward as he lunged, slashing up the front of Jackson's torso with them.

The scientist howled in pain as Jensen’s hands came away with shreds of clothing and skin dangling from his claws like scarlet ribbons. But he didn’t get a chance to make any more sounds as Jensen sliced across his face with his left hand and across his throat with his right. The stricken human slapped his hands against his neck frantically, weeping tears of maroon from the remains of his eyes, but the blood welled over and through his fingers in steady sheets. He crashed to his knees and then pitched forward, bleeding to death in mere seconds. Jensen stepped over his body and into the hallway. One left.

Jensen opened up the bond between him and his mate fully. He didn’t think Jared could really sense him in return, but he needed to try. He took cold comfort in the fact that he still sensed Jared, although it was a weaker tingle than before. Jensen knew their time was up.

Wet feet slapping rhythmically on the floor, Jensen ran deeper into the bunker, literally following his heart. After a few turns, he sped past a metal ladder mounted in a recessed section of one of the passageways. The alpha made a brief, mental note to himself to come back to it after and pushed on. The hallways, just as bleak as before, no longer had any rooms attached to them. Like Theseus, he wound his way farther into the heart of the maze. Suddenly, a crash sounded not too far off. Jensen pumped his legs harder, eventually narrowing down which corridor the noise came from.

As he hooked a right, Jensen spotted another open door halfway down. He silently thanked the gods that the humans had been in such a hurry to leave that they had apparently loosened protocols all over the place. He wasn’t sure his strength would have been enough to pry the one in front of him open if it had been locked.

The doorway opened into what appeared to be another airlock like their cage, only longer. On the walls inside hung various hazmat suits, masks and what looked like respirators. But Jensen was practically blind to all of it as his ears were assailed with the sounds of grunts and the slap of flesh against flesh. He slammed the control panel on the inner door and it whooshed open into a bright, antiseptic room full of medical equipment. Jared’s “white room”. Off to the right, Jensen saw Mark and his mate. A red haze settled over him.

Jared and Mark were caught in a tangle of limbs. The gurney that Jared had been tied to had toppled over. Either Mark had undone the top strap or Jared and managed to free it himself. But one of his legs was still caught in the lower binding at a terrible angle, the silver effectively anchoring him to the stretcher. But that hadn’t stopped him from lashing out at Mark, whose jacket and shirt were visibly torn. Mark was hunched over, Jared’s t-shirt bunched up in one hand, while he punched him repeatedly across the jaw with the other. A thin trail of blood already wound a path under his mate’s nose and there were drops of crimson staining his shirt. Jensen took in the tableau before him in mere seconds.

Mark, without turning around, shouted, “Mitch, grab the fucking gun and tranq him!” He’d obviously heard the inner door open and mistook the alpha for his partner.

Jensen twisted around and spotted a gun mounted on the wall next to a metal sink by the door. Without hesitation, he ripped the weapon from the wall holster and fired. The feathered dart struck Mark in the neck. The blond man dropped Jared and weakly pulled it out, turning to stare in utter shock at Jensen. But it was too late for him. Whatever was in the dart was fast-acting and he folded to the ground in unconsciousness, half on top of Jared.

“Jensen,” Jared croaked, trying to shove Mark away at the same time as he struggled to free his leg, finally releasing the bottom strap.

The alpha crossed the distance between them in less than a heartbeat. With one hand, he heaved Mark aside, fell to his knees and yanked Jared up against his chest. Weak arms slid up and down his back, fingers searching and prodding. “Are you okay?” came a soft voice from where his mate’s face was buried against him.

Startled, Jensen pulled away enough to catch his boy’s frantic gaze. “There’s blood everywhere. How bad are you hurt?” Jared cried.

Jensen’s jaw dropped in shock that Jared’s first concern should be for him before he gathered his wits enough to swoop down and pepper kisses all along Jared’s face. “Not mine,” he murmured, cradling him closer. “All theirs,” he added as he mouthed along Jared’s jaw, tongue laving at the places his mate had been struck. With Jared back in his arms, he scented not only his boy, but their children as well. Moisture pricked at the corners of his eyes as Jensen wrapped up his family, finally safe in his arms. But his wolf growled, reminding him they weren’t there yet. With great reluctance, Jensen pulled back a second time. He kept one arm around Jared’s bony shoulders and slid his other hand just under his boy’s chin.

“Hey,” he asked gently. “Do you know what time it is?” Jared’s brows furrowed in confusion. That was normally the omega’s question.

“It’s time to get the fuck outta here,” Jensen smirked before stealing another kiss. He felt Jared’s mouth curl up against his lips and when they broke apart, the omega was smiling back up at him. But that smile faded just as quickly when his eyes drifted over to Mark.

“What about him?” Jared jerked his chin in the direction of the scientist, as though unwilling even to say the man’s name out loud. Jensen glanced back, assuring himself the human was still deeply unconscious. His wolf wanted to rend and tear, but Jensen reined him back. Although it was against their more nurturing instincts, omegas were fierce when it was called for and Jensen wondered if Jared might like to be the one to mete out justice. He’d let his mate decide.

“We’ll deal with him in a minute,” Jensen assured him, his voice low and honey sweet. “Let’s take care of you first.” Looking around, Jensen tried to spot Jared’s remote unit. “Did Mark have the remote in his hands?”

Jared ducked his head, damp bangs sticking to his forehead in clumps. “It ended up under the gurney somewhere,” he admitted. Jensen quirked an eyebrow at his mate, but carefully shifted him over to move the wheeled stretcher out of the way. The omega hissed and reached down to touch his ankle. Jensen immediately forgot about the electronics to knee walk down the length of his mate’s long legs to the ankle in question. Taking it carefully in his hands, he saw that it was swollen, but didn’t appear to be broken. He laid it back down and assured his mate. “That’s a miserable sprain, but one shift and you should be good as new,” he smiled as he stroked Jared’s calf, fingers tracing delicate patterns on the nearly hairless flesh. Jared shivered under his touch and it was a near thing for Jensen as well. With the enemy dead, the desire to fuck – to prove they were alive – was strong.

“All right,” the alpha snapped himself out of his daze. “Let’s get that fuckin’ thing off you.” As he pushed the gurney farther aside, he asked, “So what happened?”

Jared was quiet for a moment and Jensen thought maybe he wasn’t ready to speak of it yet. As he was about to change the subject, his mate began speaking. “I-I didn’t know if you were okay,” he said solemnly. “I couldn’t feel you at all, but I didn’t know if that was because of the collar or that you were-were…” his voice trailed off and Jensen paused in his search for the remote long enough to reach back and squeeze Jared’s hand. His mate closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were clearer. “I knew when they brought me in here that if they got me on that table,” and he pointed to something that Jensen thought belonged in a coroner’s office, “I was never getting off of it alive. I wasn’t going to let our children die,” he said firmly. “When Mark undid the first tie, I surprised him as I raked at his arm and managed to get him to lose the remote before he could hit it again. Of course, I managed to take us both to the ground, too. Not one of my best moves.” And Jensen’s mate surprised him by chuckling.

Jensen crawled back and kissed Jared again. “I wasn’t going to quit, alpha,” Jared whispered against Jensen’s full lips.

“So fuckin’ proud of you, sweetheart. So grateful you hung on,” he murmured in return. Jared’s hands cradled Jensen’s face and the alpha would have deepened the kiss if his fingers hadn’t brush against Jared’s collar. The bite of silver brought him quickly back to reality.

“Let’s find that thing,” he groused and he swore he heard his mate stifle a small snicker.

Jensen found the remote, mostly wedged under the toeboard of a cabinet next to the modified autopsy table. He stifled a shiver as he looked at the thing, giving it a wide berth as Jared had said it was laced with silver. He wished, not for the first time, he could burn the place to ash.

Kneeling next to his boy, Jensen warned him of what to expect. “When I get this thing off, it’s kinda overwhelming. It about knocked me out and I only had one on for a couple weeks.” He paused, searching his mate’s face earnestly. “I can’t imagine how bad it’s gonna be for you, but don’t fight it. I’m right here, okay? You’re safe now.” And Jensen was so thankful that he could finally say those words to Jared.

Jared nodded quickly. “Do it, alpha.”

Jensen worked his finger along the silver, wincing at the dull throb that numbed his thumb, until he felt the divot in the metal. Holding it down, Jensen held up the remote and nodded in warning at Jared before triggering the collar’s release.

Like his did, the metal loop snicked open and Jensen threw it across the room. Jared’s head fell forward against Jensen’s shoulder and the alpha held him close as his mate yowled in pain. Their bond was flung wide open and Jensen felt an incredible rush of emotions as Jared was finally free. His mate was rolling his forehead against Jensen’s shoulder and clutching his arms like his life depended on it. The alpha was sure there would be bruises there that lasted through at least one shift. Jensen rocked him back and forth, whispering, “Let it take you wherever it wants to” and then “I’m here” over and over.

The wild torrent of feelings started to ebb and Jensen knew they should be leaving. He hopped into a squat and carefully pulled Jared upright with him, supporting him the whole way, not trusting his mate’s gimp ankle. He bent his head down to catch Jared’s eyes. His mate looked at him with the most open expression he’d ever seen. Jared slipped a hand behind Jensen’s head and tugged him close into another kiss, swift and nearly chaste before he let go to press his forehead to Jensen’s.

“Thank you, alpha,” he said reverently. Jensen didn’t have the words, only bobbed his head up and down slightly.

Inhaling sharply through his nose, Jared straightened in the circle of Jensen’s arms and took in the unconscious human. “There’s still him,” he acknowledged.

“There is,” Jensen agreed, waiting to let his omega take the lead.

Jared stared at the limp body of his captor and Jensen could only imagine what he was thinking, although the emotions he was picking up along their bond left little to the imagination. Jared finally tore his eyes away from the human and scanned the room briefly, before he found what he was looking for.

“Could you get my collar?” he asked the alpha. Jensen studied his mate closely before agreeing. Jensen made sure Jared had his balance before he ambled over to the hated device and picked it up gingerly with only two fingers. The silver still burned. When he turned around, Jared had hobbled over to a glass cabinet and was rifling through the contents until he pulled out a sealed syringe. Jensen hurried over and slung an arm around Jared’s waist without preamble and helped him back to where Mark was lying.

Between the two of them, they dragged Mark over to the nearest wall and propped him in a seated position. Jared knelt carefully, mindful of his ankle, on Mark’s right side, Jensen flanked him on the other. Jared set the syringe down and made to take the collar from Jensen. The alpha wanted to deny him any more pain, but knew Jared needed to be the one to do it, so he carefully passed the silver loop over to him.

Jared took the collar easily enough, as if it didn’t hurt, as if it carried no weight at all, and fixed it around Mark’s neck. The click of the latch was satisfying in its finality. It settled something deep in Jensen’s soul. He felt some of that peace reflected back in their bond. He then saw Jared unwrap the syringe.

“What’s that?” he questioned his mate.

“Flumazenil. It counteracts what’s in the tranquilizers. They always keep some made up whenever they…” Jared’s voice trailed off. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath before releasing it slowly. “They always keep some ready whenever they planned on experimenting on me,” he finished, sounding stronger. “Can you put the remote in his hand and curl his fingers into a fist?” his mate requested.

Jensen went back for the slim device, having a pretty good idea what Jared had in mind. He knelt back down on Mark’s left side and placed the remote in the human’s lax hand, squeezing his fingers into position with his thumb by the button.

Jared ripped up the sleeve of Mark’s already shredded shirt, exposing his forearm. When he found a good vein, he injected the scientist with the contents of the syringe before tossing the empty container to the side. “It’ll take only a minute or two to bring him round,” he explained perfunctorily. “It’s fast.”

Almost to the second Jared predicted, Mark moaned and his eyes fluttered. Thrashing his head from side to side, he groggily opened his eyes, regarding the Weres with an uncomprehending stare. But when he recognized them, it was like a light flipping on. Before he had a chance to escape, Jared slammed a hand against his chest, pinning him in place.

“Welcome to hell,” he sneered into the human’s ice-blue eyes and Jensen moved the man’s thumb to push the button.

Every muscle locked up, keeping Mark’s hand fixed around the remote without assistance. Jared leaned closer and Jensen had to bite back on the urge to pull his boy away from the monster who had tortured him for so many months. He couldn’t stop himself from placing a hand on his shoulder, though, needing a point of contact.

“Even worse than the pain,” he spat into Mark’s rictus grin, “that burns like fire along every single nerve ending is the fact that your mind is aware of everything. Everything! And there’s nothing you can do about it!” His mate was practically screaming at the end.

Jensen stood up and pulled Jared to him, finally unable to stand by and do nothing. He turned Jared in his arms and the omega went willing, lowering his head as he did. Jensen held him close and rubbed calming hands along the boy’s spine when he felt the drip of hot tears against his skin. “It’s done now,” he breathed in the omega’s ear. “It’s over.”

Jared sniffed but drew himself up. “Let’s get out of here,” he agreed. They both took a moment to stare at Mark, whose body remained rigid. Jensen guessed he’d stay that way until the collar eventually ran out of power, or his muscle tissue began to break down from decomposition. He had no idea which would happen first. And he didn’t care, either. He maneuvered Jared so that he could drag the boy’s right arm across his shoulders and he wrapped his left around his slender waist. Together they made their way out of the white room and never looked back.

They were silent as they hobbled the empty corridors. Jensen followed the bloody prints he’d left before like breadcrumbs, content to hold Jared close. His omega seemed as grateful for the contact and needed no words to express his feelings. Warmth tingled and flowed along their bond like sunshine. That was enough.

Jensen was almost surprised when they came across the ladder much faster than he had expected. “I think this is it,” he told Jared as he gently laid him down. “Let me check it out first.”

Jared clasped Jensen’s hand. “Be careful,” he warned, “please.”

Jensen squeezed Jared’s hand in return and winked. “Always, sweetheart.”

Jensen knew they were the last ones standing, but he still took a moment to scent the air. When he was satisfied, he grabbed the first rung and started climbing. A small row of emergency lighting lined the back of the recessed tube, but Jensen wouldn’t have missed them if they’d been gone. With the collar nothing more than a painful memory, his vision was sharper than ever. He craned his head back and judged there was only another thirty feet or so until the top. He didn’t doubt he’d found the way out. And although it would be tough on Jared to climb, he’d make it. Jensen was sure of that, even if he had to carry his mate across his shoulders. He’d always carry him.

At the top, Jensen once again sent up a prayer of gratitude. The exit codes had already been entered and he cranked the wheel above him, easily swinging open the hatch. Poking his head a little higher, Jensen was awash in the scent of pine – crisp, sharp and green. It was a few hours before dawn, judging by the glimpse he caught of the moon, a white sliver above the horizon. And he smelled rain – sweet and clean.

Leaving the hatch open, Jensen hooked his feet on the outside edges of the ladder and slid all the way down like a seaman aboard a submarine, mindful of his exposed bits. He couldn’t hold back the laugh as he kissed his mate hard. Jared smiled in return and when they broke apart, Jensen watched as twin dimples peeked back at him. He once again remembered that little boy from not so long ago and something firmed in his heart.

“Let’s get outta here, love.” He urged Jared to his feet and led him over to the ladder. It was a tight fit, but once they started Jensen was practically snug up against Jared’s back as he used mostly his arms to pull himself up, leaving the rungs free for his mate’s injured foot, while he framed his mate’s body with his own. It was slow going and they had to pause more than once for Jared to catch his breath. He kept his concentration always locked on the next rung and no higher, as though the omega couldn’t bring himself to believe escape was within reach.

“Look up and tell me what you see, Jared,” Jensen asked him when they were no more than twenty feet from the surface.

Jared finally looked up and he gasped at the pinpoint lights of stars above. “A hole,” he breathed, his voice no more than a ragged whisper. “A hole straight up to the sky.”

That was all the urging he needed to practically scramble up the remaining distance, gimp foot or not. Jensen helped push him clear and then hopped out of the hatch, slamming the lid behind him, closing the door on that death chamber forever. When he looked back, Jared was walking slowly around in a small circle. His arms were spread wide and his head tipped back. The rain he had previously smelled had arrived and it sprinkled over them like a baptism. Jensen glanced down and saw the blood slowly trickle clean and he wrapped himself in the scent, so like his mate’s. He moved towards him and as he neared, Jared raised his head and smiled. His omega pulled the dirty t-shirt over his head and tossed it aside. Never breaking their shared gaze, Jared tugged at the ties on his pants and let them pool at his ankles. He stepped out of them and came into Jensen’s arms, where he belonged.

The omega threaded his slender fingers through Jensen’s short locks, now mostly free of blood. In the faint light, Jared’s eyes were almost gold. Jensen slid one hand into his mate’s silky hair and cradled his skull while he kissed him softly. He wanted nothing more than to stay that way forever, but he knew they needed to keep moving forward. As he pulled away, he sucked on his mate’s lower lip. It finally slipped free with a wet pop.

“We need to go. Others could be here soon,” he offered by way of apology. Jared tipped his head in acknowledgement. “When you shift, it’s gonna be almost as shocking as when the collar came off. Remember I’m right here and we’re safe now. And I love you,” he added.

Jared stepped back. “Love you, too.” And he closed his eyes.

Jensen found himself standing beside a slender wolf with chocolate colored fur. Jared dropped his head and whipped it from side to side like he’d stuck his snout in a hornet’s nest. When his mate whined, Jensen sank to his knee and slowly stroked Jared’s head in a rhythmic manner. “S’okay, sweetheart,” he soothed. “S’okay now.” Moving back, Jensen slid his hand along the length of Jared’s injured leg. The limb felt sound again. It took Jared almost two minutes to calm himself. When he did, he barked suddenly and ran in a tight circle, joyfully wagging his tail.

“You’re good to go,” Jensen smiled and then found himself with an armful of fur as Jared nuzzled underneath his chin. The alpha practically giggled when Jared dragged a wet tongue up the side of his face. “So it wasn’t just the mud. You really are brown,” he said as he stroked Jared’s lush fur. His mate cocked his head curiously at his statement.

Jensen pressed a kiss to his boy’s forehead. “Remind me to tell you a story later on. It’s a really good one. Promise.”

Certain Jared was all right, Jensen closed his own eyes and called to his wolf. When he opened them again, he was on all fours alongside his mate. Jared yipped and tugged at Jensen’s ear, like the bratty pup he still was. Jensen yipped back and then growled low in his throat. Jared licked his muzzle frantically and Jensen let him for a moment. Then he circled back and nipped at Jared’s flank, signaling his mate it was time to go.

Together the two melted into the woods, leaving no trace behind.


	14. Chapter 14

A chill was in the air. November had snuck up on them all, the leaves seeming to change color and wither overnight. But maybe it was to be expected, Jensen thought, as he ran through the woods with his escort trailing close behind. Not even the humans had celebrated their beloved Thanksgiving this year, no matter how hard the media pushed the notion of consumption on the general populace. Bread and circuses, it seemed, were losing their sway.

With Anonymous’ release of the videos, the group finally achieved what they’d been striving for. The world order began to crumble on that fateful day back in March. At first, it had been groups like PETA and the SPCA who were the most vocal, denouncing the treatment he and Jared – neither had ever been positively identified – had received at the hands of FEMA. And there were plenty of vocal supporters on social media, people always quick to jump feet first into a cause even if they didn’t grasp the full ramifications of it. But amidst the blogging and re-blogging and tweeting of the vids, others began to connect what dots they had and a skewed picture had started to form.

Fringe groups, who had always existed on the periphery of acceptance once Weres had “come out of the closet”, began to support big government, praising them for studying a potentially “invasive species”, as they’d come to label the Weres. And the ever-present conspiracy theorists came the closest to the truth. Groups like AE, which stood for the very original “Adam and Eve”, and the more militant Genesis had collected enough data, thanks to their own hackers, to notice the declining birthrates worldwide. And they had not only noticed, but had published their findings on online forums and other avenues of transmission at their disposal. They took it one step farther to postulate that the fault for the decline somehow lay at the feet of the Weres who, as they had accurately pointed out, still had very young children.

Jensen picked up his pace as his thoughts raced over the last month, filled with the growing sentiment turning sour to his kind and a low-level anxiety – not quite panic yet – that was pervasive amongst the humans. But before he could dwell much more on it, a familiar howl sounded close by. Tongue lolling out of his mouth from his run, Jensen slowed to a trot as one of his attendants howled in response. No sooner had they answered then four wolves, one from each direction, bounded out of the brush and surrounded them.

As one unit, they all continued in the same direction until they crested a ridge. Jensen paused, scenting the familiar cedar of the Plateau, glad to be back on home territory after nearly a month in Dallas. Finally so close, the warmth that had previously been a trickle along the bond was now a steady pulse of affection. Jensen closed his eyes for a single moment and pushed back. Then he moved along with the others, eager to be rid of the pack across his back and put his latest trip behind him.

Once they got closer to the settlement, the four wolves that had met them at the territory line barked their farewells and meandered back to other tasks. Jensen’s two escorts stayed close to heel, though they didn’t enter the timber lodging with Jensen, loitering outside instead. Jensen whuffed to them and entered the home through the open door.

Once inside, Jensen padded down the hallway until he heard a woman’s voice, like oaky bourbon, from the kitchen out back. “You had better have wiped off those paws, Jensen Ross, before you go traipsing all through my house.” Jensen froze in place.

Beta Ferris, her long hair tied back in an efficient ponytail, came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. Glancing past Jensen to her hallway floor, she tutted disapprovingly and Jensen flattened his ears. “If I’ve told you once…” she hummed as she stepped closer, tucking the towel in a back pocket, to unclasp the makeshift saddlebags from Jensen’s back. Turning away discreetly, she motioned with a hand to the guest room, “Spare change of clothes is already laid out. And they’re fine,” she added, a warm smile melting her features into something soft.

Jensen ducked his head once and moved into the other room. He knew, because of the bond, that everything was good, but it still lightened his heart to hear it said aloud, especially when duty kept him from going there first. One step past the threshold of the guest room and Jensen was upright again, grabbing for the faded jeans and gray Henley Sam had left out for him. When he was dressed, he sank onto the bed to pull his socks on and lace up his boots. He let his head fall back and breathed in the aroma of fresh baked bread laced with rosemary, stomach growling at the heavenly smell.

Waiting in the hallway, Sam stood, holding the leather pouches by the wide, center strap. “I can fix you two up something while you talk,” she told him as she handed the saddlebags back to Jensen.

“S’okay,” Jensen replied. “I’m good, Sam.”

“I could hear your stomach a mile away. You’ll eat what I give you,” she told him sternly before pulling him into a firm hug. Jensen smiled against her hair and hugged back. In the short time since he and Jared had gotten out, she’d become almost a second mother to him, too. Her heart was a big place and Jensen had earned a spot in it. “Good to have you back, boy. He’s in his study,” she added, although they both knew Jensen could scent him easily enough. He dipped his head and walked down the hall.

Alpha Morgan was already on his feet waiting for him when Jensen knocked on the doorframe to his study. The pack alpha clasped his forearm and Jensen returned the gesture before Jeff yanked him against his strong chest and enveloped him in a huge bear hug. Jensen thumped his back in return, but allowed himself a moment to appreciate how different Jeff was from his own father.

_Jensen had to stifle a chuckle as he watched his boy fidget, shifting from one foot to the other, and tugging helplessly at his shirt. The hastily borrowed clothes were an ill-fit, but the best given the circumstances._

_“It’s gonna be fine, Jay,” Jensen soothed, slipping in the nickname without thought, and pulled Jared against his side._

_“But he’s the High Alpha,” Jared insisted nervously like Jensen didn’t realize the position his father held and he felt the waves of anxiety ripple across their bond. Jensen knew that couldn’t be good for his mate or their babies. And he was still recovering from their ordeal, which was the main reason they were in Dallas. It turned out to be the closest pack land after their escape._

_Jensen pushed back all the love he carried for his mate and he felt Jared relax against him. “Love you,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to his temple, catching a dark curl between his lips in the process._

_“High Alpha Ackles will see you now,” Matt Cohen – his father’s personal assistant, if Jensen remembered correctly – announced. The dark haired Were ushered them into his father’s private offices. Jensen never let go of Jared._

_Inside the spacious room, all dark wood and stiff, unyielding furniture, Jensen saw his father standing tall behind his mammoth, mahogany desk like a sentinel in his dark, bespoke suit. The first thing he noticed, after almost fifteen years’ absence, was that his father’s gray hair had thinned considerably and the lines, already deep across his face before, were chasms now. He wondered briefly how much his distance had added to them, although Jensen knew pack would always come first with his father. The wait he and Jared were made to endure was reminder enough of that._

_“Father,” Jensen said, breaking their silent stalemate._

_“Jensen,” Aiden Ackles replied, equally as grave. “And who is this?” he nodded to Jared, although it was only for propriety’s sake. Jared’s claim was visible and his scent was unmistakable. And there were, of course, the videos._

_“My mate Jared,” Jensen answered him and without another word, he led his omega over to a large couch and settled him there. He wasn’t about to play his father’s games of etiquette while his boy shivered with nerves. “Can you get Matt to bring us something to drink? And maybe a small meal for Jared? Please,” he added, his words clipped and terse as he scowled at his father. “He could use some food, as I’m sure you know.”_

_The High Ackle’s ramrod pose faltered and he deflated slightly. “Of course. That was…thoughtless of me. Matthew!”_

_Matt knocked first, even though he had been directly summoned, before entering the office. Jensen shook his head in exasperation. His father’s protocols wore on him and he was reminded once more why he had left all those years ago._

_“Yes, sir?” Matt directed his question to the High Alpha._

_“Matthew, could you please bring the boys some refreshments?” Aiden requested._

_“Of course, High Alpha.” Turning towards Jensen, he asked, “Anything in particular?”_

_“Nothing too heavy for Jared. He’s still…adjusting to normal foods,” Jensen explained and Jared ducked his head in embarrassment, hiding behind his bangs. Jensen clasped his hand and sent reassuring thoughts through their bond. “Maybe a bowl of stew and a glass of milk.”_

_Matt nodded. “And anything for you to drink?”_

_“Anything but water,” Jensen replied with a grim smile._

_Matt nodded again and closed the doors quietly behind him as he left._

_Jensen wrapped his arm around Jared’s shoulder and squeezed him briefly. The gesture wasn’t lost on his father, who had come around from behind his desk to stand near them. He cleared his throat._

_“Jared,” he began, “it’s a great pleasure to meet you.” When Jared started to rise, Jensen’s father lifted both his hands up and motioned for Jared to stay seated. Maybe he had finally loosened the stick up his ass, Jensen thought wryly. And as though his father could read his mind, Aiden shot Jensen a stern look. Jensen schooled his face into something appropriately serious._

_“May I?” the High Alpha asked Jared and gestured questioningly to the space beside him on the couch._

_“Of-of course, High Alpha,” Jared stuttered, scooting closer to Jensen._

_“Aiden, please,” he corrected the omega and took a seat. It wasn’t lost on Jensen that his father seemed to need the boy as a buffer between them._

_“Let’s clear the elephant from the room, shall we?” the High Alpha began after a pause. Jensen kept a firm grasp of Jared’s hand, sure that was the only thing keeping his mate from twisting his shirt sleeve compulsively. “I saw the videos, as did the rest of the world, and I…” and Aiden paused, much to his son’s wonderment. Jensen couldn’t recall a time his father had ever been at a loss for words before. “I knew in my heart,” he eventually continued, “that humans could be cruel. Vicious even. I’ve know that for more than seventeen years. But I can’t express how I felt when I saw what they did to you, child.” Jared couldn’t meet the man’s eyes. Jensen felt the shame, like sour milk, filter along their bond. He rubbed his thumb soothingly along the back of Jared’s hand, drawing a calming pattern on the thin skin there._

_“And to only find out after the fact that Jensen was with you…” he croaked._

_“Only for two weeks, Dad,” Jensen was quick to reassure his father. They might be miles apart in their philosophies – although suddenly closer in some respects thanks to his recent captivity – but he never wanted his father to suffer more than he already did because of what had happened to Jensen’s mother. Having Jared, however briefly in his life, had opened Jensen’s eyes to what it meant to love and potentially lose a mate._

_Finding his voice, Jared tugged his hand free from Jensen and took both the High Alpha’s in his, a bold move for his nervous boy. “He saved me, sir. Your son saved me,” he said, voice barely above a whisper._

_Aiden adjusted himself so that he was facing Jared more fully and Jensen saw a gentleness there he had been missing in his father for decades. “Something tells me, son,” he replied, turning the tables on Jared and wrapping his hands around the boy’s, “that you saved him just as much.” Jared lowered his head until his chin touched his chest and he blushed all the way to the roots of his hair. “May I?” the High Alpha asked, lifting one hand up and hovering near the omega’s lap. Jared, unable to speak, bobbed his head up and down._

_With infinite care, Jensen’s father placed his hand on Jared’s abdomen. After a brief moment of silence, he gasped. “Twins?” he looked between Jensen and Jared for confirmation. Jared nodded again and Jensen gave him a slow smile._

_“Do you know how rare that is?” he continued, as if they didn’t know there hadn’t been a recorded case of twins in several generations. “Do you know what that might me-”_

_“Where is he?” a deep voice shouted from outside the office, cutting the High Alpha short._

_“I’m sorry but you can’t –” Matt began, but the doors to the office slammed open and in strode a frantic alpha Morgan, with beta Ferris in hot pursuit._

_“I don’t give a good God damn about standing on protocol…” but the gruff alpha’s tirade petered out as soon as he spotted Jared._

_Jensen wasn’t sure who broke the staring contest first, but before anyone could say anything, Jared and alpha Morgan were running towards each other, a blur of motion. Jensen and Aiden stood as one to watch the pack alpha of San Antonio enfold his foster son into a fierce embrace that the alpha only briefly broke to pull in his beta, too. Jensen could barely distinguish his mate in the jumble of limbs, but the contentment that filled their bond lightened his heart. Alpha Morgan’s powerful shoulders hitched once and Jensen heard a mangled sounding “Lucky Charm” before it was lost to tears and murmurs of joy. Jensen’s breath caught at the sight._

_“I’m so sorry, High Alpha,” Matt apologized._

_Aiden Ackles shook his head and waved a hand dismissively to the beta. Jensen almost gaped in amazement as his father allowed the breach of etiquette. His father gave him a tremulous smile. “I understand how he feels, son,” he offered in explanation and hesitantly placed his arm around his shocked son’s shoulders._

_Jensen slipped his hand up his father’s spine, noticing the loss of muscle along his back. “Me, too, Dad. Me, too.”_

Jeff clasped Jensen’s shoulders and pushed him back, tilting his head one way and then the other, appraising. “You look good, son,” he finally decreed. “We missed you.”

Jensen smiled in return. “Missed you, too, old man,” he joked and winced when Jeff punched him none too lightly on his bicep.

“Keep it up, pup, and I’ll show you,” Jeff threatened him good-naturedly.

“You both better behave,” Sam chided them, carrying a tray laden with roast beef sandwiches on slices of thick, homemade bread. Jensen’s stomach rumbled loudly enough that both Jeff and Sam chuckled. She placed everything on a low table between two very overstuffed and lumpy leather chairs and motioned to the food. “Eat,” she commanded before leaving the men to it.

“Thinks she’s the boss,” Jeff mumbled.

“I heard that,” came her sharp reply from somewhere down the hallway.

Jeff waggled his eyebrows and grinned. “Let’s eat and you can tell me all about it,” he said, jerking his chin towards the pack Jensen carried. “I know who you really want to see. Just hit me with the highlights for now and we’ll hash out the details later.”

Jensen let out a big sigh, grateful for Jeff’s understanding. He dove into the food with gusto, not only because he was starving, but because Sam was one of the best cooks around. Both of them finished their food in a ridiculously short amount of time. Wiping his hands on his jeans, Jensen opened one of the two bags and pulled out a sheaf of papers, which he handed over to Jeff.

“Here are some of the preliminary issues that have been identified,” Jensen began without preamble. “It’s in no way all-inclusive, considering how much has to be taken into account once the humans are gone. We’ve highlighted some of the major issues like what technologies we might want to keep going.” He paused and rubbed the nape of his neck. “Personally, I’d prefer we keep the greener options like solar and wind energy, but it’s all still obviously up for debate. Realistically, there simply aren’t enough of us to keep the old infrastructures intact. Some things are going to have to go.”

Jeff nodded absently as he shuffled through the notes. “I see somebody finally thought about money,” he noted.

“Yeah. That’s definitely a tricky one. Keep a currency like paper or gold or just go back to the barter system? Roché in Europe would like to stick with gold, but Collins over towards Russia is adamant about barter. And there are several more who think a mixture is best,” Jensen finished.

“Communications, transportation and a hundred other things are all on the table, but there’s one thing we all agree should be at the top of the list,” the younger alpha added.

“Defense,” Jeff finished for him and Jensen nodded solemnly.

“Too many factors against us are in play now,” Jensen replied.

Nodding, Jeff tugged at his beard thoughtfully. “Saw the latest incident on the news last night. Genesis was happily claiming responsibility for it, too.”

“They scare me, Jeff,” Jensen admitted, scratching the back of his neck again, “almost more than FEMA does. I think they even scare them.”

“I think you’re right,” Jeff agreed. “What’s the consensus on that?”

Jensen sighed. “Dad’s starting to rethink letting Weres who have integrated into human society stay in place. He wants them to pull back to pack lands for the time being, especially those with young kids.”

“Can’t say that I totally disagree with that, son,” the older alpha added. “You know we’ve already beefed up security and patrols since…” his voice drifted off, unable to finish. Jensen didn’t need him to. He got it. He had lived it.

“I’ve got mixed feelings on it myself, for obvious reasons. And a lot of the other pack leaders feel like Dad does. But I think Weres that are flying completely under the radar…the ones without young, should stay where they are if they’re willing. For one,” Jensen listed, “they can be a great source of information. And another is we need people to stay up to date with the jobs and technologies that we want to keep in the long run. We need to know how things work and how to keep them working. Isolationism won’t do us any favors in the long run.”

“Yeah, I can see the logic there, too.” Shaking his head, he said, “Very murky waters to try and navigate. So did they agree unanimously on anything?” Jeff grumbled.

“Just one thing,” Jensen solemnly answered. “Letting the humans twist in the wind. Whatever is happening to them…whatever is doing this to them has a reason. And since they chose not to come to us for help, instead choosing to do what they did _to_ us, we’re gonna let it run its course. This is something bigger than all of us and we’re not gonna question nature. We’re gonna do what we always do and embrace it.”

The two men sat in silence for several, long minutes. Finally, Jeff slapped his hands on his thighs loudly.

“All right. We’re not going solve all of the world’s problems today,” he joked to break the tension. “I’ll go through these tonight and maybe you and I can catch up tomorrow on some of the finer points.”

Jensen ducked his head and rubbed his neck again. Jeff burst out laughing.

“Okay, maybe the day after tomorrow?” he compromised.

“That’d be good,” Jensen mumbled as both men stood, his ears turning red.

“Before you disappear on me, let me see what you’ve gone and done to yourself,” Jeff demanded.

“What do you mean?” Jensen was genuinely confused.

“You’ve been pickin’ at your neck for the last half hour. It’s more than a nervous thing. Turn around,” he told Jensen, twirling one finger in the air.

Jensen obliged the older alpha and shifted his position. With his hair so short, the mark on the back of his neck was clearly visible – a black “ **Α** ”. Hot puffs of air hit the skin there and it tingled. Jeff didn’t say a word, though.

Twisting back around, Jensen couldn’t read Jeff’s expression. “They never got around to tattooing me,” he began. “Maybe they were never gonna bother. I know even though he can’t see it, Jared knows its there like a brand and it bothers him. A lot. I got the tat so he’d know he’s not alone; that I’m in this together with him and he’ll never be alone because I’ll be right there.” And he waited for Jeff’s pronouncement. He didn’t have to wait long.

Jeff pulled him back into another hug and planted a smacking kiss near his ear. “You’re a good one, Jensen Ross. I couldn’t have dreamed up a better mate for my son.”

When they pulled apart, Jeff’s eyes were suspiciously bright. “Now get outta here or my boy’s never going to forgive me.” And he cuffed Jensen on the shoulder as the younger Were passed him.

“My boy,” Jensen corrected him with a wink.

“Get outta here,” Jeff growled and Jensen took off, grabbing his pack and a jacket Sam had obviously left for him by the door despite the fact that it was nearly 50 degrees Fahrenheit and he’d barely felt the chill. He shook his head and smiled. A mother was always a mother.

Waiting patiently outside, his two attendants followed him dutifully across the western section of town. More than once, Jensen had to stop and chat with someone when he was recognized. Although he was aching to get to Jared, he spoke to each in turn. The San Antonio pack had opened their arms to Jensen, which wasn’t a surprise; Weres would always support Weres. But they had opened their hearts as well. Once again, Jensen was reminded that he had made the right choice to settle in the place where his mate felt safest, despite his father’s disappointment. But Dallas just didn’t feel like home to Jensen. Not since his mother had died and the schism between him and his father had cracked open.

After what seemed like an eternity, Jensen spotted their home. It was a small house, two stories, made of wood and stone not too far off from the Beavers’ place, backed up into a natural cul-de-sac. The pack had come together to build it the first month they had returned. It had just about killed Jared not to be able to pitch in beyond design suggestions, but there was no way in Hades Jensen was going to let his pregnant mate take a single chance at getting hurt after everything they’d been through. And their rows had been pretty spectacular over Jensen’s obviously justified caution, which Jared had liked to call his “bullheaded stubbornness with a side of jackass”. But the makeup sex had been even more outstanding, so there was that.

Coming to the threshold, Jensen pulled Chris’ pack free and handed it back to him as soon as the other Were was standing on his own two feet. “Thanks, man,” he told the shorter alpha.

Chris tossed his long, dark hair out of his blue eyes as he rummaged through the bag for his jeans. “Told you it wasn’t a problem,” he said with a grin.

“Not like you had a choice, given Dad’s orders,” he groused as he helped Ty with his bag.

“Brother, we woulda happily done it anyway,” Ty assured him with his slow, Southern drawl.

“You two wanna come in?” Jensen offered with a jerk of his head, but the other alphas, dressed in jeans and flannel shirts, both started to laugh.

“Not a chance,” Chris answered easily. “I like my balls right where they are, thank you very much. I’m not about to risk ‘em to a pissed off omega who hasn’t seen his mate in a month by getting in his way.”

Ty mock punched him in the shoulder. “Got that right, little brother. We are going to partake of some of San An’s fine hospitality before heading back to Dallas.”

“Mm hmm,” Jensen said. “And what are their names again?”

“Gentlemen never kiss and tell,” Ty shot back, but Jensen was tickled to see how red Chris got.

Waving them off, Jensen stepped inside his home and felt as though the weight of the world had slipped from his shoulders the minute he scented his family. He was about to call out to Jared, when he smelled the beta nearby. He poked his head into their dining room, which apparently had been turned into a makeshift study in his absence, to look for her. Books of all sizes were spread over their oak table and a notebook was open, filled with Jared’s chicken scratches that he claimed was actual handwriting. Kim entered from the kitchen door, smiling with a finger held up to her lips.

The dark haired woman, Jim Beaver’s mate, was one of the pack teachers and had unofficially stepped up as a sort of nanny for their children when Jensen was away. As much as Sam would have loved to do it, pack business in the current climate demanded too much of her time. Kim was more than happy to oblige and she had started to groom Jared as an assistant teacher as well, having him focus specifically on Were history and lore. She knew firsthand how much he had already studied up on the subject and Jensen thought he spotted one or two of his father’s books from his private collection on the table; borrowing them was the only thing Jared was brave about with the High Alpha. Jensen hoped that might change in the future.

“I figured you must have hit pack land about an hour ago,” Kim told him in a hushed voice.

“How’d you guess?” Jensen asked, slinging his bags over the back of the nearest dining room chair and giving the beta a quick hug. He placed a foot on the seat of the chair and began unlacing his boots.

“That’s when he conked out. The little ones went down about an hour or so before him.”

“Thanks for keeping an eye on them,” he told her quietly, toeing off his shoes and shrugging out of his jacket.

“Hey, I’m just trying to trick him into taking over the school so I can finally retire,” she shot back, shoving Jensen lightly against his chest.

“Uh huh,” he scoffed. “And why do I not believe that was your only reason?”

Kim stuck out her lower lip and huffed hard enough to ruffle her bangs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But now that you’re back, I can get the hell outta here and finally head home.”

As she moved past Jensen, he grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you,” he told her softly. She didn’t turn around, but squeezed back once before freeing her hand and leaving.

Jensen rustled around in his pack until he found what he was looking for. Pulling out the small device, he padded into the kitchen. Since it was magnetized, the little digital clock stuck easily enough onto their refrigerator door. Jensen placed it right near the handle, at about eye level. He’d bought the thing, tossed in a basket with a lot of other impulse gadgets, at a small store on his way out of Dallas. He nudged it straighter and smiled.

What most people didn’t notice when they first visited was that their home was full of clocks. Big ones, little one, windup ones and electric ones filled the place. Jared never said anything directly, but each time he discovered a new one, he would give Jensen the sweetest, most heart-wrenching smile. Jensen never wanted his mate to ever have to ask that damned question again if he could help it. And, Jensen hoped, if Jared could always see what time it was easily enough wherever he turned, maybe one day he could let go of his relentless need to keep track of it. Jensen hoped for so many things.

He glanced around the kitchen, done up in shades of apricot because Jared wanted it to be a bright, happy room, and was glad he had eaten at Sam and Jeff’s place when he saw nothing on the stove. He wouldn’t admit it to Jared’s face, but his mate wasn’t the best cook in the world. Of course, Jensen wasn’t much better at it, despite his stint one time as a short order cook. Jared was quick to point out their children had no complaints with his culinary skills, but Jensen claimed that was cheating since he had milk on tap.

His children.

Suddenly, Jensen didn’t know what the hell he was waiting for. He left the kitchen and took the stairs around the corner two at a time, nearly leaping the last few to the second floor landing. He cautiously opened the first door on the left and stuck his head in. Nestled together on a pile of pads surrounded by pillows (that was new…how Jared thought pillows would stop his boys, he had no idea) were his sons. He gripped the door so tightly that his knuckles whitened as he watched the rapid rise and fall of their tiny, furry bodies. Wrapped up in one another, he could only tell which parts were Roman and which were Remy by the shade of fur, with Remy just a hair darker than his older-by-three-minutes brother Roman. The desire to touch them was so strong, but Jensen knew they would probably wake if he did that, so he reined in the desire and simply soaked up the sight and scent of his boys, who mostly still smelled like Jared with a hint of cinnamon all their own.

Watching them sleep, paws twitching, he wondered if he and Jared could have another set of twins, or if it would be a single pup as most Weres did. Whatever might happen, he was glad that they had time to decide about more children. After giving birth, fertile Weres secreted a hormone that inhibited conception anywhere from ten to fifteen years, a natural buffer against overpopulation considering their lifespans.

Before he closed the door, Jensen noticed that Jared had made another change while he had been gone. The lavender walls of the nursery were the same, but the ceiling, which had been white before, was now indigo blue. And Jensen could barely make out a scattering of stars across it that he was sure glowed after dark. He smiled one more time at his boys and closed the door with a quiet _snick_. Across the hall, he bumped open the partially closed door and leaned against the doorframe, drinking in the sight before him.

The room was awash in the glare of late afternoon sun, the light made into something diffuse and muted by the gauzy curtains that covered both the windows and French doors, which opened onto a small balcony facing the trees. The room itself was painted a warm beige. Nothing in their house was pure white. Neither one of them would be able to stand it. In the center was their bed, a gift that Jim had custom made for them. It was a striking thing, more than big enough for two grown men over six feet tall to stretch out on. What made it unique, however, was that Jim had used actual birch trees for each of the four posts and placed one horizontally for the frame of the headboard. Each post practically brushed the ceiling with at least one of its multiple branches. And stretched out on the rumpled sheets, Jared slept peacefully.

On his stomach, his omega’s face was tilted towards the French doors that were cracked slightly to let in the cool, autumn air. His hair was spread out around him, giving him an angelic look. His arms were bent at the elbows and his hands tucked up under the mountain range of pillows scattered against their headboard. Jensen let his eyes trail down his mate’s naked back, humming in appreciation of the lean muscle and lack of visible ribs, to points farther south. Jared’s left leg was laid out straight while his right knee was hitched up towards his chest. The position only served to stretch his lounge pants tight across the firm globes of his pert ass. Jensen found himself hardening in his pants at all that was laid out before him, his cock rubbing uncomfortably up against the scratchy denim of his jeans.

Something of what he was feeling must have travelled along their link, because as Jensen watched, Jared moaned softly, still asleep, and began to slowly writhe against the mattress while raising his buttocks in tiny, abortive thrusts. Jensen wanted to tear off his clothes and rut against his mate, but he still wasn’t comfortable surprising Jared that way after everything that had transpired those months ago.

Taking a deep breath, Jensen reached over his shoulder and yanked his shirt free in a fluid movement as he approached their bed. He crawled over his mate like the predator he was and slowly settled himself along Jared’s back. He let his scent descend over them and, despite his best intentions, couldn’t help but grind his dampening crotch against his boy’s backside a little. Jared sighed and pushed back. Jensen growled in approval, nosing around the delicate skin behind Jared’s ear.

“You’re going to have to make it quick,” he slurred in a sleepy tone. “My mate’ll be home any minute.”

Jensen bit down on Jared’s earlobe sharply. “Brat,” he rasped, voice all gravel rough with need.

Jared snuffled into the pillow while he rubbed his ass against Jensen’s rock hard cock. The alpha’s eyes closed at the delicious, not-quite-enough friction, but apparently his mate wasn’t satisfied. He squirmed and wiggled around until he was on his back, looking up at the alpha with his tip-tilted eyes half open. He smiled, deep dimples slicing into his cheeks. Jensen would never get tired of seeing them. He swooped down and licked a wet stripe across the right one before brushing his lips against his mate’s mouth.

“Wait, Jensen,” Jared whispered breathlessly. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

That was not what Jensen, or his wolf, particularly wanted to hear, but he lifted his head back slightly. “Are you okay?” he asked. Jared smiled and nodded. “Are the boys okay?” A second nod and a bigger grin.

“Then it can wait,” he barked and dove back in. His kiss this time was hard and on the dirty side. With insistent pressure, he worked his tongue into Jared’s mouth, tasting the moist sweetness within. He didn’t know how hungry he was for his mate until the moment their tongues twined. But he wasn’t alone in that hunger. Want and craving flooded back along the bond, ratcheting up Jensen’s own yearning. With surprising strength, Jared flipped them over until Jensen was on his back and his mate sat astride him. Jensen appreciated the view.

In the last five months, Jared had put on some healthy weight and not only for the pregnancy. His muscles had filled out, although they would always be on the lean side since he was an omega. But his ribs no longer stood out and his hipbones had lost that dangerous, razor sharp quality they had had before. Jensen also suspected his boy was slightly taller than him and might still grow another inch or two and he was thrilled with every sign that pointed to his mate thriving once more.

He ran his hands slowly up Jared’s stomach and abs, which had started firming up again since giving birth, to rub his thumbs back and forth over his rosy nipples. Jared whimpered at the touch and dropped his head back, mouth slightly parted.

“Uh,” he moaned and Jensen plucked at the peaked nubs, knowing how overly sensitive they were while Jared was still nursing. Smelling a heavy sugar in the air, he lowered his eyes to Jared’s groin and saw a wet spot to rival his own staining his boy’s light sleep pants. He couldn’t resist and moved one hand to palm Jared’s ass. The seat of his pants was a damp mess and the knowledge of how much his mate wanted him made his cock impossibly harder. He was honestly surprised it hadn’t burst the zipper of his jeans yet.

Jared swung his head forward, hair fluttering with the motion and almost collapsed onto his chest. His mate sucked a series of bruising kisses under Jensen’s jaw all the way down to his clavicle and Jensen felt the heat of them burning him bone deep. A low rumble started in his throat and he felt Jared smile against the skin of his chest right before he latched onto one of Jensen’s nipples. With kitten licks and gentle nibbles, he teased Jensen until the bud was in the same, stiff state as Jared’s. His mate wasted no time turning his attention to the other one while naughty, slender fingers worked their way between the press of their flesh to tug at Jensen’s hated zipper. Jensen slammed his head back against the pillows at the sensations.

Jared smirked as he pulled off the alpha’s chest and rolled slightly to the side to get better access to the hardware he was struggling with. Each click of a metal tooth drove Jensen crazy as more and more of his cock, which he was certain was super-heated, was exposed to the air and his mate’s hungry stare.

“Why, alpha, going commando?” Jared teased.

Jensen raised his head and scowled. “Well, somebody apparently forgot to leave any underwear for me with Sam.”

“Terrible oversight,” Jared clucked his tongue. “Simply terrible.” And with that, Jensen’s cock sprang free, angry-red and eager.

Jared rolled over his mate, propped on all fours and slowly, teasingly dragged Jensen’s jeans with him as he scooted towards the end of the bed. He made sure to drag his open mouth along the side of Jensen’s shaft in the process. It made Jensen near insane, but in the back of his mind – where he was still a little rational – Jensen was so pleased to see his mate growing confident and secure in their love-making.

When he was finally at the end of the bed, Jared tossed Jensen’s jeans and socks aside before standing up. Jensen followed his every move with laser precision. His mate dragged his hands across his abs to palm at his groin. Jensen hissed at the show. Then he slid one hand back up to the waist of his pants and pulled the ties loose. The thin, well-worn flannel slid down his hips and fell like a whisper to the floor. He stood tall and unashamed in front of Jensen. Strands of his hair, copper in the diffuse light, tumbled across his eyes. The young alpha groaned in pained delight and flung a hand towards his mate, urging him back without words.

In an almost identical manner as Jensen had earlier, Jared kneeled on the bed and slinked his way up the older Were’s body. They both moaned as their cocks bumped one another and Jensen thought he was going to tear out of his skin with want. He needed his mate and wanted to knot him slow and deep. But he knew they were both too wound up for that right now, so as soon as Jared was stretched completely out on top of him, Jensen locked his arms around his boy’s back and rolled them quickly onto Jensen’s right side. He moved his right hand up to the back of Jared’s head and grabbed onto a handful of his thick hair while he reached down with his left to wrap his fingers around as much of their cocks as he could. With both of their shafts nearly drooling, the slide was slick and easy. The heft and weight of Jared’s cock, like silk covered steel, was intoxicating. He pulled Jared’s face towards his, their lips brushing but not kissing so much as sharing the same air. He sped up the motion of his hand without tearing his gaze away from Jared’s dark eyes. His pupils had all but eaten up the hazel, leaving only a thin corona of color behind.

Almost without warning, Jared’s orgasm struck. He sucked in a ragged breath as hot come shot out and spattered both their chests and coated Jensen’s furiously working hand. He watched, mesmerized, as Jared’s lower lip trembled with emotion and his own orgasm ripped through him like a thief in the night, unexpected and frightening in its intensity. He couldn’t help the howl that tore out of him and had no idea how he maintained the presence of mind to gentle his strokes and wring every last ounce of pleasure out of them both, but he did.

He loosened his grip on Jared’s hair and his boy’s head sank into the crook of Jensen’s elbow. He was panting like he’d run miles through the woods and Jensen wasn’t much better off. He rasped, “Love you,” before kissing Jared sloppy and lazy-like.

“So much,” Jared mumbled in agreement, eyes finally closed. “I –” but before he could finish, the wail of a baby cut them off.

Jensen froze, stunned. That wasn’t the whine of a pup. That was crying. And then a second whimper joined the first, creating a caterwauling chorus.

Visibly collecting himself, Jared opened his eyes and grinned at Jensen, understanding his confusion. “That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier.”

“But-but…” the alpha stammered.

“I know,” Jared agreed and sat up. He looked over his shoulder and added with a smirk, “Of course, your boys would have to be early bloomers.” Jared rose on unsteady legs and, even in his bewilderment, the wolf in Jensen preened at the sight of his omega clearly so affected by their mating.

He watched, still dumbstruck, as Jared scooped up his sleep pants and hastily wiped away as much of the evidence of their coupling as he could before tossing the soiled pants right at Jensen’s face. The alpha broke out of his daze long enough to catch them. “Clean up and come join us,” Jared invited before he left their bedroom.

Jensen snapped out of his shock and wiped himself down quickly. Tangled in the sheets, he nearly tripped in his eagerness to see his boys. Hopping on one foot, he yanked the offending bedding aside, but by the time he got to the nursery, the crying had stopped. Jared had settled down next to their children, already in wolf form, and Jensen stared as both Remy and Roman were able to prop themselves up on wobbly elbows to suckle greedily at all that Jared offered them. Hypnotized, he watched as their tiny, flushed-pink hands kneaded Jared’s side ruthlessly, tugging and yanking at the sable fur.

Jared raised his head and huffed at Jensen before lowering it again. Taking that as his cue, Jensen stepped carefully over the ring of pillows, apparently there to slow his boys down when they shifted and tried to crawl, to kneel behind his sons. With trembling hands, he stroked the delicate skulls of his children – Roman, who smelled like alpha with his fine blond hairs and Remy, an omega, with a thatch of brown that almost formed curls.

As he watched his boys suckle at their mother’s teats, he had a dream of the future. Of what his sons would inherit and build on.

What they would make great.

He cast a look at his mate, who met his gaze square on.

They were the alpha and the omega.

The future was theirs, for they had world enough and time.

 

The End

 

**_Revalations 22:13_ **

**_"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so this arc comes to a close...
> 
> To the OP: I hope this met your expectations and you're pleased with how it turned out.
> 
> To Everyone: Thank you so much for your wonderful comments and kudos! They meant a great deal to me and it was gratifying to know I wasn't just tossing words out into the void.
> 
> There _are_ more stories to tell in this world, and I do have timestamps and a sequel planned, but I've got other projects to finish first. That being said, I've tacked on a little teaser of things to come...
> 
> If you want the story to have its happy ending untarnished, then do not hit the "next chapter" button. If you don't mind fretting and worrying, knowing I won't answer your questions right now, then by all means, stick around for the credits to finish rolling and catch the clip at the end before the house lights come up...
> 
> You have been warned!


	15. After the Credits Roll...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't want to worry and fret until I get around to the eventual sequel, turn back now!

 

Derek rushed nervously down the hallway, casting a quick glance at the armed detail he passed. Almost unconsciously, the raven haired man dropped a hand down onto his own thigh holster, fingers brushing reassuringly against the cool metal of his weapon. Rounding the corner, he entered a waiting room and jerked his head in acknowledgement to the man seated at a rather sparse desk in front of Heyerdahl’s office door.

“Go on in,” the receptionist-cum-guard told him. “He’s quite eager to see you.”

Derek nodded and adjusted his Kevlar vest. After Genesis’ latest attack, the para-aramid gear had become mandatory for all FEMA personnel. He couldn’t help the trickle of sweat that slid down his spine because of it. He told himself it was the heavy cloth that caused it. “Thanks,” he replied gruffly and entered the inner office, closing the door quietly behind him.

As his eyes adjusted to the dimmer lighting within, Derek was hard pressed not to call out “Uncle Chris” even though he had worked for the man going on seven years now. But habits were hard to break and the director _had_ practically been a father to him since he turned fifteen, taking him in even though he wasn’t blood and raising him after his family had…well, best not to dwell on what had happened to his parents after all these years.

Looking up from his computer screen, Heyerdahl, with the eerie electric glow lighting up his face, regarded him with his deep, blue eyes. “You have something to report?”

Derek drew himself to his full height of 6’5” and desperately tried to quell his excitement so as not to blurt it out like a kid, knowing how pleased he was about to make his uncle. “I do, sir.” He surprised himself by sounding like the thirty-four year old he actually was, regardless of how often he got carded because of his baby face.

“Go on,” the director urged with a slight wave of his hand.

“I’ve finally worked out the codes and got them activated,” he said a little breathlessly, “and they’re tracking.”

“The chips are working?” Heyerdahl asked, apparently needing the news repeated a second time.

“Yes, sir. I’ve got a definite lock on the two Weres.”

For a minute, the director was quiet. Derek stood at attention, noticing how Heyerdahl stroked a set of dented hard drives on the corner of his desk almost lovingly. Finally, he broke the silence. “Excellent work, my boy. Excellent work.”

Derek beamed at both the praise and rare slip of familiarity in the workplace.

The director seemed to come to some sort of internal decision that, Derek knew, he would not be privy to until the director was ready to share. “I’ll let you get back to it then.” It was an obvious dismissal, but Derek didn’t take offence. He was used to it. He swiveled with almost military precision and was reaching for the door when the director called out to him.

“One more thing. Could you tell Mark I’d like to see him as soon as possible? I think I have some news he’d like to hear.”

Derek smirked. “Absolutely, sir.”

Heyerdahl nodded to him. “Dismissed, Padalecki.”

 

**To Be Continued...**


End file.
